


What a Wonder You Are

by maybeeatspaghetti



Series: Shameless Whizzvin Smut [16]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: (not graphic), Anal Sex, Awkward Conversations, Blow Jobs, Bottom Whizzer Brown, Champagne, Chocolate, College AU, Coming Out, Declarations Of Love, Dry Humping, First Kiss, First Time, Food, Hand Jobs, Homophobia, Intimidation, Love Letters, M/M, Making Love, Marvin protects Whizzer from a creep, Men Crying, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, POV Marvin (Falsettos), POV Trina (Falsettos), POV Whizzer Brown, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Reunions, Sibling Abuse, Smut, Top Marvin (Falsettos), affectionate Marvin, charming Whizzer, lonely Whizzer, mention of sexual assault, mention of sexual harassment, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26523028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybeeatspaghetti/pseuds/maybeeatspaghetti
Summary: College AU: Whizzer and Marvin are seniors in college and have plans to travel and live together after college. But after Marvin goes home after graduation, he never contacts Whizzer again and Whizzer is left lost and confused. Now, ten years later, Whizzer runs into Marvin and his fiancée Trina and has to reconcile the Marvin he used to know with the new Marvin he's presented with. Trina, on the other hand, suspects Marvin and Whizzer used to be more than friends and sets out to make things right.(Whizzer, Marvin, and Trina each narrate parts of the story, so you see all three perspectives on what's happening.)
Relationships: Marvin/Trina (Falsettos), Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Series: Shameless Whizzvin Smut [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850437
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So my previous fic, "Making Love," may have grown into something much longer... 23k words later, here it is!

Coffee smelled like a memory. Whizzer Brown chased it sometimes, following it into cafés and coffee shops, trying to remember. He had been chasing it today, wandering down side streets in search of that fading memory—trying to remember the feeling, trying to remember a face—when he rounded a corner, not watching where he was going, and collided with someone. They let out an “Oof!” and stumbled back.

“I’m so sorry, I—” He caught sight of the person he’d bumped into and couldn’t breathe.

A pair of large blue eyes were staring at him, wide, shocked. Those _eyes_. Whizzer had thought he’d never see them again. _Marvin_. His eyes flitted across Marvin’s face. It had been so long since he’d seen this face that he’d nearly forgotten it. How could he have forgotten it? It was the most beautiful face he’d ever seen, and even though it was ten years older than the last time he saw it, it was still so familiar.

“Marvin?” 

A woman’s voice broke through Whizzer’s thoughts. He realized he and Marvin had just been staring at each other. Marvin tore his eyes from Whizzer and looked to the woman at his side.

“Trina, this is Whizzer.” He sounded dazed. “Whizzer, this is...” He rocked back and forth from one foot to the other. “This is Trina, my fiancée.”

Whizzer, who hadn’t really been listening and was still staring at Marvin, heard the word “fiancée” and his eyes snapped to the woman—Trina. She smiled.

“Hi,” he said quietly, sticking his hand out. Trina took it. “It’s nice to meet you.” He sounded more composed than he was. Inside, he was reeling. Marvin was getting married. He was engaged. To a woman.

Whizzer was sure he’d misheard. Marvin was engaged to a _woman_? But—Marvin was _gay_. Marvin came out to him junior year of college. Marvin had been his _boyfriend_ for a year and a half. And now, ten years down the line, he was engaged to a woman? What on earth had happened since college, since… _them_ , that made him do this complete 180? He couldn’t wrap his head around it.

“It’s great to meet you,” Trina said. “How do you know Marvin?”

“Marvin and I were—” He had no idea what to say. They had been lovers. Hardly appropriate to say to Marvin’s _female_ fiancée. “We were…”

“Good friends,” Marvin said.

“Yeah,” Whizzer agreed, and it was technically correct—they’d started off as best friends—though it pained him to say it now. “Good friends,” he repeated, a little more softly. 

“We lost touch after college,” Marvin said, though he wasn’t looking at Whizzer when he said it. The anger Whizzer had felt all those years ago reared up suddenly. They hadn’t _“lost touch.”_ They’d had plans to take a road trip and then move in together after college and then Marvin had just disappeared on him. Cut off all contact. Vanished. He didn’t even say goodbye.

“Oh! You should come over for dinner one evening,” Trina said, putting her arm around Marvin. “What do you think, hon? I have that fabulous pork medallion recipe I haven’t made in a while.”

“If Whizzer— If he wants to,” Marvin said, and his eyes were imploring.

Whizzer swallowed. This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. But… it was _Marvin_. Well, and Marvin’s fiancée, which… 

Anyway, he knew it was a bad idea, knowing full well he would only start hurting again, but he found himself nodding yes. “I’d like that.” Would he?

Both Trina and Marvin smiled, but it was Marvin’s smile he couldn’t tear his eyes away from. In ten years, the memory of that smile had faded, and to finally see it again was wonderful, but made him incredibly sad. He and Marvin looked at each other, pain and sadness underwritten in their eyes. Whizzer wanted to ask for—no, demand—an explanation, an answer. _Why?_

“How about Saturday night at seven?” Trina asked, and Whizzer nodded, still looking at Marvin. _Why?_

Trina wrote down their address on the back of a receipt, and Whizzer tucked it in his pocket. They said goodbye, and as Whizzer watched Marvin walk away, arm in arm with his _fiancée_ , he wished he hadn’t accepted the invitation to have dinner with them. It would hurt too much.


	2. Chapter 2

_Just after Thanksgiving break, when there are two and a half weeks left of the fall semester junior year of college, Marvin finds Whizzer in the library. He’s terrified but he needs to talk to Whizzer. Whizzer is his best friend. Whizzer is the only person he wants to talk to._

_“Hey, uh…” Marvin starts. Whizzer looks up. Marvin swallows. “Hey,” he repeats._

_Whizzer smiles. “Marvin.” The smile slides off his face when he realizes Marvin is not smiling back. Marvin thinks he probably looks as sick as he feels. “Everything all right?”_

_“Not really.”_

_Whizzer is up in a flash, scooping his textbooks into his bag. “Homework can wait.”_

_They go outside together, the crisp November air stinging Marvin’s face as they walk. Neither of them says anything for a while. Marvin walks and Whizzer follows, but Marvin’s not really sure what his destination is._

_Eventually he stops in a courtyard on the far end of campus. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready to tell Whizzer this—if he’ll ever be fully comfortable with what he’s about to say—but he wants Whizzer to know. He wrings his hands, shuffles back and forth on his feet, bites down on his bottom lip._

_“I—” He stops and looks away from Whizzer. “I’m gay,” he says. “I think.”_

_He’s so caught up in his mind, realizing that he just said those words out loud for the first time, that he forgets Whizzer is there until Whizzer nearly squeezes the life out of him._

_“Marvin, Marvin, Marvin,” Whizzer chants, rocking him back and forth. “I’m so proud of you.”_

_A hint of a smile tugs at the corners of Marvin’s lips and he lets himself be rocked. It’s comforting. He likes Whizzer’s hugs, always has. Whizzer’s hugs envelop him and warm him like no one else’s, and it’s no wonder he has always felt a little more strongly about Whizzer than anyone else._

_“I just— I needed to tell someone.”_

_Whizzer is Marvin’s best friend, so of course he would tell Whizzer first. But Whizzer also happens to be the boy Marvin can’t live without. It just had to be Whizzer, didn’t it?_

_“I’m so happy you told me,” Whizzer says, still squeezing him. He’s far more excited than Marvin expected. But he’d rather have Whizzer’s enthusiasm than his disapproval. Not that he expected Whizzer to disapprove of his being gay—Whizzer himself is gay—but he hadn’t counted on Whizzer being excited._

_Whizzer finally lets him go and they start walking aimlessly again, but this time they just make a wide circle on the path around the courtyard, not talking, but the atmosphere between them is different. Marvin is relieved and Whizzer is happy._

_“Sarah from my biology lab tried to kiss me this morning,” he blurts out. He hadn’t been meaning to tell Whizzer this, but he can’t stop now. He’s desperate to tell somebody, and although he has a feeling opening this can of worms with Whizzer cannot possibly end well, he plunges ahead recklessly. “I don’t want to kiss her. I want to kiss someone else.”_

_“Then kiss them,” Whizzer says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world._

_“I can’t.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Because— Because I just can’t.” Marvin stops walking. Whizzer stops and turns to him._

_“How long have you wanted to kiss this person? I’m assuming it’s a guy?”_

_“A while.”_

_“Is he gay?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Is he single?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“For god’s sake, Marvin, you just gotta do it. Just plant one on him and see how it goes. What do you have to lose?”_

_Marvin pushes forward suddenly, pressing his lips to Whizzer’s for a split second before a look of horror crosses his face as he realizes what he’s just done. He turns and flees, running across the courtyard._

_“Marvin!”_

_He doesn’t stop or look back. He knows he’s just ruined his friendship with Whizzer—ruined it over a stupid little kiss. If only he’d had a bit more self-restraint, if only he hadn’t let his feelings get the better of him, if only he didn’t have this stupid crush on his best friend in the first place. He hears heavy footfalls behind him and then Whizzer is grabbing his arm and pulling him around._

_“Marvin, you ass,” Whizzer says, and kisses him._

_When Whizzer pulls away, leaving a stunned Marvin standing before him, he’s laughing. “You asshole. Why didn’t you just say something?”_

_“You— You kissed me,” Marvin says dazedly._

_Whizzer runs his hands through Marvin’s hair, still laughing. “Oh, Marvin.”_

_“You kissed me,” Marvin repeats._

_“Yes.”_

_Marvin’s hands, which have been hanging limply at his sides, fly to Whizzer’s waist. Whizzer steps closer, his hands still in Marvin’s hair. He pulls Marvin into a hug, cradling his head to his chest. Marvin clutches the back of his jacket._

_“Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to kiss you?” Whizzer asks. Marvin shakes his head, thankful that the blush that blooms across his cheeks is hidden in Whizzer’s jacket. “About six months after we became friends—so, like, second semester freshman year—you were over in my room, sitting on the floor, reading a book, and you laughed, and that was it.” Whizzer shrugs. “That was it,” he repeats, his voice trailing off._

_Marvin tilts his head up and looks at Whizzer. Whizzer isn’t looking down at him; his eyes are closed, the breeze fluttering the tuft of hair flopping over his forehead. Marvin whispers his name and Whizzer looks down on him, eyes sparkling._

_“Yeah?”_

_“Kiss me again?”_

_Whizzer needs no persuading. His lips are cold against Marvin’s, but Marvin couldn’t care less. A sudden cold breeze whips across the courtyard, bringing a tornado of leaves with it, and they get caught in Marvin’s hair. Whizzer, laughing, plucks them out and tosses them into the wind, his hand on Marvin’s hip, warm._


	3. Chapter 3

Whizzer, always punctual, showed up at Marvin and Trina’s apartment Saturday evening at three minutes to seven. Marvin opened the door and Whizzer took that opportunity to really get a good look at him, especially now that his mind wasn’t clouded by the shock of seeing him after so many years. Marvin had gained weight since their college days—not unexpected, as Whizzer had also gotten heavier—but Marvin looked… plumper around the middle than he remembered. He looked healthy, though. He was taking care of himself. 

Marvin gave him a half-smile. “Hi.”

Whizzer returned the half-smile with one of his own. “Hi, Marvin.” 

The name felt foreign on his tongue. He hadn’t said Marvin’s name aloud in so long. Even when they were together, he had used pet names more and more often until, by the end, he rarely used Marvin’s name at all.

“Come in.”

Whizzer stepped inside. The apartment was warm and inviting, cozy, with beige walls, vertical blinds on the windows, and a few houseplants scattered throughout.

“It’s good to see you,” Marvin said tentatively.

Whizzer wanted to return the sentiment but was hesitant. Marvin had been the one who disappeared on him. Marvin was the one who had things to answer for. Whizzer shouldn’t be glad to see Marvin, and a part of him wasn’t, but he had been missing Marvin for ten years and it _was_ good to see him, despite it all. He wanted to keep his mouth shut and not say the same—let Marvin know he was still upset and angry, as he should be—but he didn’t want to have to see the disappointment that would surely spread across Marvin’s face if he was silent. He told Marvin it was good to see him too. Marvin smiled—a real smile this time. Whizzer offered only another half-smile in return, and Marvin’s smile faltered. He didn’t want Marvin to pretend everything was fine between them. It wasn’t. Whizzer wasn’t going to ignore the years of pain he’d gone through just because Marvin had moved on. Maybe Marvin hadn’t been hurt as badly, seeing as he was the one who’d left, but Whizzer was still healing. He was afraid being around Marvin would just reopen those wounds.

The phone rang in the other room and Whizzer heard Trina pick up.

“Marvin, it’s for you. Work.”

Marvin tore his eyes away from Whizzer and went to get the phone. Trina came out to greet Whizzer.

“Sorry about that. Work calls at all hours. I wish he could leave at five and be done with it until nine in the morning.” She sighed. “He’ll be a few minutes, probably. Can I give you a tour of the apartment while we’re waiting?”

Whizzer didn’t exactly want to poke around Marvin’s life, but he was curious to find out about the man he had become.

“Sure.”

Trina gestured to the room Marvin had gone into. “That’s the living room. I’ll show you when Marvin’s not in there.” She gestured to the kitchen on the opposite side of the hall. “Kitchen. Not much interesting in there, I’d guess. I do all the cooking. Marvin’s hopeless. He can barely even mix together box macaroni and cheese.” She smiled fondly. “I don’t know what he’d do without me to cook for him.”

Whizzer distinctly remembered teaching Marvin how to make red velvet cupcakes in the communal kitchen in the middle of the night once. Marvin had struggled at first, but he was a quick learner and could have outpaced Whizzer in the kitchen if he’d put a little effort into it. Apparently, Marvin had yet to reveal his baking skills to his fiancée. 

“He doesn’t know how to make anything?” Whizzer asked, pressing.

Trina laughed and shook her head. “I know. He’s a hopeless case, he is.”

Whizzer swallowed the lump that had just risen in his throat. Marvin had made those cupcakes for him, surprising him right before graduation. It was sweet, it was—

“The dining room’s over here but you’ll see that as soon as Marvin’s off the phone, so I won’t bother showing you.”

Whizzer followed Trina down the hall. There were pictures dotted along the walls—most were of Marvin and Trina, but others were people Whizzer didn’t recognize, and he assumed they were friends or family members.

“Marvin’s study. He spends most of his time in here.” She looked a little put off but smoothed it over with a smile. 

Whizzer peered in. Marvin had a sleek antique cherry hardwood desk. He was curious to see it. He remembered Marvin’s college desk well—how he arranged his pens, what side he kept his notebooks on, where he kept his bag of cough drops that he didn’t ever use when he was actually sick. 

“Can I?” Whizzer asked, gesturing to the room. Trina stepped back and he stepped in. He walked up to the desk and looked down on it. It was neat, unusually so, for Marvin, and there were a couple framed pictures on the top. One was a picture of Marvin and Trina standing together. His arm was around her shoulders. Whizzer picked it up to look more closely at it.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Trina said, leaning against the doorframe. “Marvin’s very particular about his things. They have to be completely organized. If anything’s slightly out of place, he has a conniption.”

Whizzer put the photo down. The Marvin he knew was a slob, hopelessly messy. Ten years could change a person beyond recognition, Whizzer supposed. This Marvin was not even close to the Marvin he once knew. The Marvin he knew would never keep his desk clean. The Marvin he knew would never date a woman, let alone date one long enough to get _engaged_. He had no idea who this man was, other than he shared the same name, the same face, and the same voice as the Marvin he used to know.

Trina stepped out of the doorway and into the hall and Whizzer took that as his cue to leave Marvin’s study and move on.

“This is my bedroom,” Trina said, stopping again. She pushed the door open a bit. The room was neat and orderly and very simple—a white bedspread and white furniture against powder blue walls. Trina moved on down the hall and pushed open another door. “And this is Marvin’s.”

This was _Marvin’s_? Marvin had his own room, his own furniture, his own bed?

“This is _Marvin’s_?” Whizzer couldn’t help himself. “He doesn’t…” He looked back to Trina’s room. “You don’t… sleep… together?”

Trina laughed, a tinkling, amused laugh. “Oh! No. I never remember that most people don’t choose to wait until marriage to have sex.”

“Oh. You’re waiting. I see,” Whizzer said, stomach churning. “Actually, no. I don’t see. How does that work?”

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t trying to probe for information. What was Trina’s definition of having sex? Was dry humping considered sex? Were hand jobs and blow jobs considered sex? Or was only the actual act of inserting a dick into a vagina considered sex? What, if anything, had they done together?

Trina stood up a bit straighter and clasped her hands, and Whizzer got the impression he was about to get a lecture.

“So, Marvin and I are both ‘saving ourselves for marriage,’ I guess you could say. That means no intercourse. Outercourse is permissible, but neither Marvin nor I have ever done that. Masturbation is permissible, but again, neither Marvin nor I have ever done that. Together or alone. It’s simply a choice we have made for our lives.”

Whizzer squirmed under her gaze. Marvin was either outright lying to his fiancée or he had simply _implied_ that he had never done any of those things in his life, because he’d definitely fooled around with Whizzer. Many times. 

“I see now,” Whizzer said, nodding. He swallowed. “Your room’s a lot nicer than Marvin’s. He definitely got the short end of the stick.”

Trina laughed, looking a bit relieved that Whizzer didn’t make fun of her for her choice to abstain from having sex until marriage, and showed him the rest of the apartment.

Marvin finally got off the phone and they went to the dining room and sat down to eat. Trina was an excellent cook, and Whizzer enjoyed the meal even though he felt awkward sharing a table with Marvin and his fiancée. It turned out that while Whizzer had been living here for the past five years, Marvin and Trina had been around for the past four. Trina expressed amazement that the two of them had never run into each other and said they all must get together again since they lived so close by. Whizzer nodded, against his better judgment, and tried not to look at Marvin, whom he could tell, in his peripheral vision, perked up when Whizzer nodded. Coming here was a very bad idea. He was so conflicted about Marvin, and being in his presence was making it all the more difficult for him. He didn’t know if he could do it again.


	4. Chapter 4

_Marvin calls Whizzer long-distance over winter break, which racks up an expensive phone bill, but Marvin promises his family he’ll pay it and tells them he’s talking to his girlfriend. And, to avoid any unwanted eavesdropping, he calls Whizzer at three am, when it’s only midnight on the west coast and Whizzer is still up. They talk for a couple hours, until it’s just after five and Marvin starts hearing the first stirrings in the house, and he says goodbye, hangs up, and slinks off to bed._

_His family hounds him about this mysterious girlfriend, but he’s vague with his answers and tells them that the more they ask, the less he wants to tell them. They leave him be eventually, and he spends every night with the phone in his hand, listening to Whizzer’s voice and wishing he could hear it in person._

_When he returns to campus after winter break, he’s one of the first students back. He wanders around campus late at night the first night he’s back, the streetlamps lighting the paths in a soft white glow, wishing time could move just a little faster than it does._

_Whizzer finally arrives two mornings later and Marvin drives to the airport to pick him up. Whizzer’s flight is delayed, so he sits in his car with the radio on while he waits. He’s so absorbed that he doesn’t see Whizzer barreling toward the car until the driver’s side door is yanked open and a pair of lips are pressed to his cheek. Marvin is desperate to kiss him properly, but he doesn’t dare do it in public, and so, once Whizzer’s in the passenger seat, he settles for a quick kiss on the lips that, in case anyone happened to see, could be passed off as something more innocent if necessary._

_Marvin parks in the student parking deck, where there’s no one around, and that’s when Whizzer grabs him across the center console. They kiss like they’re starving, and after being apart for nearly a month almost immediately after the start of their relationship, it has been starting to feel that way. When Marvin pulls away, Whizzer tries to keep him in place._

_“No, no, Marvin.”_

_“I want to hug you,” Marvin says. “I can’t hug you properly like this.”_

_Whizzer lets him go and Marvin gets out and goes around to the other side of the car, where Whizzer has also gotten out. Marvin wraps his arms around him and they lean against the car in a tight embrace. Marvin presses his ear to Whizzer’s chest and hears the gentle rhythm of his heart. He has never been so happy._

_He helps Whizzer move the few things he took home with him back into his room. Whizzer’s roommate dropped out over break, and the Housing Office couldn’t find anyone else who needed a roommate, so Whizzer has the room to himself. Whizzer is excited to have a private room and spreads his things all about the room, making it feel less empty._

_Over the next couple months, some of Marvin’s things find their way into Whizzer’s room, and the half of the room that had been previously occupied by Whizzer’s roommate has now, unofficially, become Marvin’s space. They study there in the evenings and play board games and sit and talk, and Marvin realizes one evening that he spends more time in Whizzer’s room than he does in his own, which is, thankfully, a single. He would never want to explain his absences to a roommate. The first night he sleeps over with Whizzer, he and Whizzer drag the mattresses onto the floor so they can be closer to each other. Marvin’s last coherent thought before he falls asleep is wondering how much longer it will be before he and Whizzer are sharing one bed rather than pushing two mattresses close together._

_The first time Whizzer touches Marvin, it’s three and a half months after they get together. After a makeout session becomes just a little too heated, both Marvin and Whizzer are hard and their cheeks are a rosy pink and their hearts are beating rapidly in sync. Whizzer rests his forehead against Marvin’s, breathing shallowly, beads of sweat glittering on his temples. Marvin’s not embarrassed to have gotten hard from making out with Whizzer, but he’s never touched anyone or been touched by anyone before and he doesn’t know how this is going to go. He wants Whizzer to touch him. He doesn’t know if he should ask for it. He doesn’t know if he should touch himself. He doesn’t know if he should make the first move and touch Whizzer. He doesn’t know what to do._

_Whizzer—whom Marvin knows has slept with men before, many times—cups his face and kisses him softly. His hands trail down Marvin’s arms and then touch his hips, which makes Marvin jump, and he quickly relaxes, although his insides are squirming with anticipation._

_“Can I?” Whizzer whispers, his hand hovering just centimeters from the bulge in Marvin’s pants._

_Marvin says yes, and Whizzer’s hand touches him. It’s electric. He gasps and pushes his hips forward, chasing friction, chasing pressure, and Whizzer works him over carefully, eventually slipping his hands into his pants. Marvin almost comes on the spot when Whizzer’s warm hand curls around him. He feels a little pathetic to be completely inexperienced at age twenty-one, but Whizzer doesn’t laugh at him; he leans him back on the pillows and touches him and murmurs things to him and makes him feel good. It doesn’t take much before he’s coming, spilling over Whizzer’s hand and into his underwear, letting out breathy moans as he does. He can’t believe his body can feel like this. It’s incredible, and he’s breathing heavily as he slumps into the pillows, Whizzer’s head dropping to his shoulder at the same time._

_He’s embarrassed for coming so quickly, but for only a second, though, because Whizzer bites down on his lip and groans into Marvin’s shoulder. His hips jerk minutely and a wet spot grows on the front of his shorts. He hasn’t even touched himself. Desperately curious, Marvin reaches out and puts his fingers on the sticky mess seeping through Whizzer’s shorts. Whizzer drops his head back on the pillows, mouth open, breathing heavily._

_Whizzer pulls his hand out of Marvin’s pants and licks the come off his fingers. Marvin looks down at the come on the tips of his own fingers—Whizzer’s come—and he brings it to his lips. It’s not as off-putting as he would have thought—it’s salty and slightly bitter, and, to Marvin’s surprise, it’s also sweet-tasting—and when Whizzer leans forward to kiss him, he tastes himself._

_“You okay?” Whizzer asks when he pulls away._

_“Why wouldn’t I be?”_

_“I was just checking. You’re being really quiet. You’re okay with what we just did, right?”_

_A giddy smile fights its way onto Marvin’s face. “Yes. Yes.” He laughs suddenly and flops down on his back on the bed. Whizzer lays down beside him and their hands find each other. Marvin curls into him and presses light kisses to his jawline. “That was—”_

_“Really good.” It sounds almost like a sigh, the way Whizzer says it._

_“Probably boring for you, but I’ve never—”_

_“Not boring, no.” Whizzer rolls so that he’s facing Marvin, eye to eye. He touches his foot to Marvin’s. “I’ve never come just from making someone else feel good. It was because it was you. You made me come, even if you didn’t touch me. It was listening to you and seeing you and feeling you. It was all you.”_

_Marvin doesn’t know what to say to that, so he kisses Whizzer instead and tries to cuddle as closely as possible. Whizzer wraps his arms around him and they slot their legs together._

_“How was it for you, baby?” Whizzer asks._

_Marvin sighs heavily into Whizzer’s neck, feeling good, loving the pet name Whizzer’s just given him. “It was really nice.” He tries not to sound too awed. In truth, it was incredible, but he feels a bit awkward saying it’s the best thing he’s ever felt in his life, so he settles with describing it as “nice.” “I mean, I’ve never, so…”_

_“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” Whizzer says softly. “We all go at our own pace.”_

_“Still… I’ve only ever done it myself and it was never that good.”_

_Whizzer chuckles. Marvin feels the vibrations in his chest. “And that’s only the beginning. It gets even better. If you want it, that is.”_

_“I want it.”_

_“So do I.”_

_Whizzer kisses his head and they lie together in silence, their breathing evening out, going back to normal._

_“Do you want to take a shower with me?” Whizzer asks after a while._

_“Oh, uh…”_

_They’ve never seen each other naked before. Even with what they just did, they still had shorts on. Marvin wants to see Whizzer naked, he really does, but he’s hung up on the fact that, in turn, Whizzer will see him naked, and that makes him nervous._

_Whizzer brushes his hand across Marvin’s cheek. “You don’t have to.”_

_“No, no, I do,” Marvin says, making a snap decision. He does want to. A lot. It makes him nervous, but it’s a good nervous._

_“Come on, then.”_

_Whizzer sits up, pulling Marvin with him, and they go to the bathroom together. Whizzer’s lucky—he’s got an en suite bathroom, unlike Marvin, who has to suffer through using a communal bathroom. They’d never be able to do this there._

_They undress carefully and look at each other. Marvin squirms under Whizzer’s gaze, but Whizzer reaches out and skims his hand over Marvin’s hip and he calms immediately. And Whizzer is— Whizzer is gorgeous. He’s indescribably beautiful and Marvin could never have imagined this, when he thought about what Whizzer looked like naked; Whizzer’s far beyond beautiful… he’s stunning, ethereal._

_Marvin’s never seen another man’s cock before and he’s looking at Whizzer’s now—still half hard from what they did earlier—and he wants to touch it. He wants to hold it, feel it, really get a good look at it, but Whizzer doesn’t give him the opportunity; he steps close and kisses Marvin, whispering something about how wonderful he is, and their bodies brush together, warm and soft._

_They get in the shower together and wash off, and it’s then that they really explore each other’s bodies—wet and slippery—touching, feeling, getting to know each other in a new and different way. When Whizzer crowds Marvin against the shower wall and kisses him, they’re pressed together, chest to chest, and Marvin has never been so warm._


	5. Chapter 5

Whizzer’s house was a split-level two-bedroom home that was far too big for just him, but he had liked the house when he’d toured it five years ago and he needed to just settle down. He’d spent so many years floating around the country, jumping from job to job, trying to run away from his past, that he was tired and needed to just get a grip on his life. So five years ago, he had toured this house and decided to buy it. What a coincidence it was that he and Marvin had both ended up in the same place around the same time and yet had never run into each other until now.

Whizzer sat down on the loveseat in the living room and sighed. It made sense that Whizzer wouldn’t have run into Marvin until now. Whizzer was doing his best to be active in the gay community by going to community outreach programs, getting to know people, making friends, going to bars. Marvin, engaged to a woman, would most certainly not be hanging around anywhere that might put him in Whizzer’s path. And they lived on opposite sides of town, so they frequented an entirely different set of shops. 

He was thankful that Trina kept inviting him over and did not expect him to invite them over to his place. His house was nice, but it was hardly what you’d call a _home_. Whizzer had filled it out, put photos on the walls, filled the bookshelves, put down rugs and doormats, placed magazines and lamps on small tables throughout, hung up curtains, and bought a set of coasters and strewn them around in the unlikely event he had company over, but he didn’t like having visitors. The house felt sterile, forced. He hadn’t lived with anyone since he had unofficially shared his dorm room with Marvin the last half of junior year and all of senior year. Even that college dorm room he spent two years in felt more lived-in than this house, five years on. While it may have irked him at the time that he was always tripping over Marvin’s things or finding lost tubes of Chapstick in their bed, he missed it now. He would give anything just to trip over a pair of Marvin’s sneakers that he’d toed off in the middle of the floor instead of by the door.

Whizzer picked up his address book. There was a phone number on a post-it stuck to the front. He’d met someone recently at one of the community outreach programs he attended and he’d felt good about seeing him until Marvin had stumbled back into his life. Now… 

He was supposed to call him that evening. They had established a routine of calling every few evenings after dinner, but Whizzer didn’t have the energy to spend half an hour chatting. Compared to Marvin, this man didn’t even come close. Whizzer was completely apathetic. He decided he didn’t care at all if this potential relationship fizzled out. He didn’t have the energy for a relationship with anyone who wasn’t Marvin. With Marvin, it never felt like he was putting in any effort. It had come to them so naturally, so easily. Everyone else just felt like work. Whizzer sighed and tore up the number, tossing it into the recycling bin on his way to the kitchen.

He didn’t eat much for dinner, and after he had washed and dried the dishes, he fixed himself a gimlet on the rocks and went to sit on his front porch, which overlooked a terribly ordinary street lined with other houses that looked very much like his. He had discreetly hung a pride flag in the top of the front window that was only barely visible from the road if you were really looking for it. He wanted to unashamedly share that part of himself with the world, but he didn’t really fancy a having brick thrown through his window—which had happened to a friend of his who lived closer to downtown—so he kept it on the down-low. 

Whizzer sipped his drink slowly, not really enjoying it like he usually did. Halfway through, he ended up dumping it over the porch railing and slumping down in his rocking chair, rocking mindlessly. He had been doing so well—finally getting a handle on his life and taking good steps toward moving on completely—and then Marvin, of all people, had to show up. And with his _fiancée_ , no less. 

Whizzer still couldn’t get over that. Marvin Cohen, the anxious boy who had looked positively disgusted at the prospect of being kissed by Sarah from Biology, was engaged to a woman. He knew he kept repeating that, kept coming back to it, unable to let it go, but it just didn’t make any _sense_. Marvin had told him outright that he wasn’t attracted to women. They’d had several conversations about it. At the time Marvin had kissed him for the first time junior year of college, he hadn’t kissed a anyone since tenth grade because when the choice was women or nobody at all, he’d chosen not to kiss anyone.

Whizzer massaged his temples, trying to work it all out in his mind. Eventually, after they were married, Marvin was going to have to have sex with Trina. If Marvin had balked at even kissing a girl, how on earth was he going to be able to stomach sex with one? Whizzer sighed heavily and rubbed his face. He should never have accepted Trina’s invitation to go visit. It was doing exactly what he had feared—reigniting long-buried feelings and resentments—and Whizzer didn’t want the pain that came with it. 

He went inside to take a bath, leaving the chair rocking, empty, on the porch.


	6. Chapter 6

_“We should take your car and go out of town for the weekend,” Whizzer says. “Stay in a hotel, go exploring… you know.”_

_“Where do you want to go?”_

_“Somewhere that’s not here.”_

_They settle on a place a couple hours away, and even though it’s close enough to be a day trip, they book a hotel for Friday and Saturday night so they can stay the weekend. When they check in, Whizzer flirts with the woman at the front desk to draw attention away from the fact that they are two men spending the weekend there, sharing a room. Marvin goes up to the room, while Whizzer is still chatting away at the front desk, and gets settled in as much as one can in a hotel. There are two beds, of course—they wouldn’t dare ask for one—so Marvin picks one and throws his stuff on the other one._

_He’s poking around the bedside table drawers when Whizzer finally comes in. He’s carrying flowers, chocolates, and a bottle of champagne._

_“What on earth is that?”_

_Whizzer sets it all down on the desk in the corner. “I may have asked Eleanor from downstairs what the hotel’s amenities are for honeymooners, and she may have given them to me, no charge, because I said something about wanting to share them with someone special. Obviously, I didn’t mean her, but she didn’t know that, of course, so she handed them over.”_

_Marvin bursts out laughing. “You charmer.”_

_“Women fall over their feet to please me if they think there’s a chance I’ll come to their room later. The only place I’ll be coming later is… somewhere on you, probably.”_

_“God, Whizzer. You sure are something.”_

_Whizzer grins and holds out a flower. Marvin goes over and takes it and Whizzer pulls him into a kiss._

_“I’m gonna hop in the shower,” Whizzer says, giving Marvin one final peck. “You can start on those chocolates if you want.”_

_Whizzer slips into the bathroom and Marvin takes the box of chocolates from the table and goes to sit on the bed. They’re all individually wrapped, so he dumps them out on the comforter and arranges them in different shapes and patterns until Whizzer emerges, damp, a towel slung low across his waist._

_Whizzer doesn’t bother to get dressed. He climbs on the bed and leans into Marvin’s side, towel still around him._

_“Feed me.”_

_Marvin unwraps one of the chocolates and holds it up to Whizzer’s lips. It feels a bit awkward, but when Whizzer bites it in half, his lips catching Marvin’s fingers, the mood shifts, becomes heavier. Marvin eats the other half, and Whizzer unwraps another one. He puts it between his teeth and Marvin leans over and they bite it in half together. They eat a couple more on their own, kissing in between. When Marvin reaches for another, Whizzer stills his hand and unwraps one of his own. He pops it in his mouth and beckons Marvin closer. He pulls them together in a slow, open-mouthed kiss, and they pass the chocolate back and forth between them until it dissolves. Marvin pulls away breathless, heart pounding._

_Whizzer’s hands reach up to cradle Marvin’s face._

_“You do things to me,” he says, voice breathy._

_Marvin’s eyes flick down. He’s hard. Marvin reaches out and fondles him through the towel. Whizzer falls back on the bed, knees up, the towel falling mostly open. Marvin completely forgets he’s still fully dressed—save for his shoes, which he toed off near the door—until Whizzer tugs his shirt up, untucking it, fumbling with the buttons. Marvin pulls it off and unbuckles his belt. Whizzer’s hands go to undo his pants and he kicks them onto the floor. He shucks his underwear off, and he’s hard too, flushed and quivering._

_“C’mere, you.”_

_They press up against each other, rolling their hips and rolling around on the bed, laughing sometimes, kissing sometimes, and holding onto each other all the time. Marvin’s got both of their cocks in his hand, stroking them together, when Whizzer produces a condom and holds it up. The light glints off it. Marvin’s hand stills abruptly._

_“You— You want—”_

_“Yes. Do you?”_

_Marvin feels like passing out. “Oh god, yes. Yes, I do.”_

_Dry humping, hand jobs, and blow jobs are as far as they’ve gone, and maybe Marvin has messed around with touching Whizzer “down there” when he washes him in the shower, but they’ve never actually… They’ve talked about it, yes, said they both want it, but this is real, this is them staring it in the face and realizing they’re going to do it._

_Whizzer sits up and pulls Marvin in for a messy open-mouthed kiss. Their hands are flying all over each other now, knowing what they’re about to do, and when Whizzer lays back on a pillow and opens his legs just enough for Marvin to fit between, Marvin’s suddenly very insecure, terrified he won’t be good enough or that he’ll hurt Whizzer or—_

_“Hey, hey, baby, calm down.” Whizzer’s hand is pressed to Marvin’s cheek and Marvin nuzzles into it. Whizzer’s done this before, Marvin hasn’t, and he’s terrified he’ll be awful at it. “It’ll be good, baby,” Whizzer says, stroking his cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you. I’m right here.” He presses the lube into Marvin’s hand. “Use your fingers a bit first.”_

_“Don’t you have to—”_

_“Did it already,” Whizzer says, and… oh, that’s why he showered earlier. “Also opened myself up a bit for you, to make it easier. You can go straight for a finger if you want.”  
_

_Marvin wets his fingers with lube, and it’s slimy and slippery and he’s not sure he likes the smell, but all that slips from his mind when he presses a finger inside Whizzer and Whizzer moans. The sound goes straight to Marvin’s dick. He’s never heard Whizzer make a sound quite like that before, loud and pleasure-filled, and he wants to hear it again. He moves his finger around, feeling around inside a bit before pulling out and pressing back in, and he’s rewarded when Whizzer makes that sound again and thrusts his hips up a bit._

_Marvin adds another finger and fingers Whizzer lazily for a while—Whizzer had relaxed and loosened up a lot in the shower, so the slide is easy and good—until Whizzer asks if Marvin is ready. Marvin doesn’t answer. He pinches the condom wrapper between his fingers, staring at it, almost in disbelief that he’s going to have sex with Whizzer._

_“You okay, baby?” Whizzer’s eyebrows pinch together in concern and he sits up, his hand reaching out. “We don’t have to if you’re not ready.”_

_“I want to, I just… Hold me for a minute, please?”_

_Whizzer pulls him close, and they cuddle for a few minutes, rocking lazily against each other, staying hard, trying to relax. Whizzer takes Marvin’s cock into his mouth for a bit, tonguing at the tip, stroking the rest, getting him good and worked up so it’s the easiest it can be for both of them. He pulls off, his lips wet._

_“Whizzer, I—” Marvin nods even though no question has been asked._

_“You okay? You ready?”_

_Marvin laughs a little. It’s a nervous laugh, but it’s a really good nervous. “Yeah. I’m good. I’m ready. I— I can’t open this,” he says, holding the condom out. His hands are too slippery. He realizes they’re shaking just a bit._

_Whizzer laughs and tears it open for him. “Can I put it on you?” he asks, and Marvin nods. Whizzer rolls the condom on and kisses Marvin before lying back down and getting comfortable on the pillow under his hips. He is splayed open, his legs spread wide, every part of him exposed, and Marvin is awestruck, dazzled. He touches himself, feeling the condom, heart pounding erratically, nervous and excited._

_Marvin gets closer, holding the bottle of lube. He squirts some in his hand._

_“There’s no such thing as too much lube,” Whizzer says. “Go wild, baby.”_

_Marvin laughs and he squirts some more and Whizzer tells him to keep going, keep going, keep going, until there’s an obscene amount of lube everywhere, but Whizzer says that’s just right, and Marvin moves even closer, until his hands are curving around Whizzer’s hips and the tip of his cock is brushing against Whizzer’s body._

_“You can go ahead whenever you’re comfortable,” Whizzer says, his breath hitching. His cock is laying red and thick on his navel, leaking onto his abdomen._

_Marvin reaches for himself, strokes himself a couple times, slick and hard, before taking a deep breath and nudging at Whizzer’s hole. This is it. This is the moment. There’s no one he’d rather give himself to, and no other person could ever come close to being as kind and sweet and gentle with him as Whizzer is…_

_When he finally starts pushing in, they both let out long, drawn-out moans that sound almost harmonious the way they mingle together in the room. It feels better than Marvin ever dreamed. Whizzer is blistering hot and tight and perfect around him and the intimacy of it is overwhelming. Whizzer reaches for him desperately and Marvin leans down to let Whizzer kiss his face._

_“Whizzer, Whizzer, Whizzer…” He doesn’t have the words to articulate what he’s feeling—the dizzying novelty of being inside another person for the first time, being with Whizzer, feeling him tight around him. It’s so much all at once._

_“Marvin, baby. You feel so good, baby. Stretching me full.” Whizzer drops his head back onto the pillow, mouth slightly parted, before lifting his head again and cradling Marvin’s face. His pupils are blown wide and there’s a pink flush spreading across his chest and up his neck. “It’s everything I’ve been wanting. Fuck me, baby.”_

_For the second time, Marvin feels like passing out. He begins thrusting shallowly, and it’s sloppy and inexpert, but Whizzer gives him directions and tips on what to do until he finds a good rhythm that makes them both gasp and groan until the room is filled with just that—the sounds they make, the words they murmur to each other, the encouragements, the reassurances, the sounds of sex, the sounds of passion, the sounds of two people uniting in the most intimate way they know how, the sounds of two men learning to move together as one. It’s a beautiful symphony, and it’s their symphony. Just for them._

_Whizzer chokes out that he’s close, and when he comes, he arches his back and shoots across his chest, his hand working over his cock, and for Marvin, the sight of Whizzer’s cock twitching in his hand is all too much and he pushes forward until he’s locked tight inside Whizzer and lets out a series of gasping, breathy, frantic moans as he spills into the condom._

_When the world swims back into focus, his chest is heaving and Whizzer, beneath him, is running his hands up and down Marvin’s back. Whizzer’s face is pink, and his lips are red and swollen from biting down on them, and he and Marvin are both sweaty and trembling. Whizzer clutches Marvin close as Marvin pulls out and disposes of the condom, and then they wipe themselves down with the sheets. Marvin points out that it doesn’t matter if they soil this bed, as they have another, and Whizzer laughs delightedly and oh, how Marvin loves making Whizzer laugh._

_They’re both clingy after they come, always, no matter how it happens, but this time, emotions running high between them, it’s a hundred times more intense and they try to fit themselves together as closely as possible, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. They kiss and nuzzle into each other and intertwine their legs, but they’re beginning to realize that no matter how much they try, they’ll never be able to replicate the extreme closeness they felt when Marvin was inside Whizzer. They do their best, and as the post-coital chemical cocktail lighting up their brains begins to ebb away, just holding each other begins to feel like enough._

_“You are incredible,” Whizzer murmurs into Marvin’s ear. “For your first time, you were pretty damn good. There’s no one else I’d rather be with. You felt so good, baby.”_

_Marvin blushes and presses closer. He sighs happily. “You made me feel so good too, Whizzer. But saying it like that sounds… flat. I— I don’t even know how to say what I want to say. I don’t know how to tell you how you made me feel.”_

_Whizzer kisses the side of his head. “Words will come to you. Just give it time.”_

_“I want to do that again.”_

_Whizzer chuckles. “So do I. We have all weekend, baby. We don’t even have to leave the hotel.”_

_Marvin laughs. “That might be too much for me.” Something dawns on him. “Is this why you wanted to get a hotel? So we could have an entire weekend to ourselves?”_

_“With room service so we don’t have to leave if we don’t want to? Possibly. My bed also sucks and I wanted… I wanted us both to be comfortable if we were gonna, you know, have sex.”_

_Marvin nudges him. “You should have just said.”_

_“Surprise?”_

_Marvin kisses up his neck. “A good surprise.” He glances up. Whizzer is looking down at him adoringly. Marvin wriggles out of his arms. “Now— shower with me?” he asks, extending his hand toward Whizzer._

_Whizzer takes his hand. They go wash off in the shower, plastered to each other’s sides, and then go back to the bed—the clean bed—shove their things onto the floor and, without pulling on any clothes, climb in. They pull the covers over their heads and curl up in the darkness of the blankets, face to face, although they can’t exactly see each other through the blackness. Marvin tries to kiss Whizzer but, in the dark, misses, and they bump foreheads. They laugh and laugh and laugh, and there’s none of the awkwardness Marvin had expected there would be after having sex for the first time. Instead, he just feels happy. Content. Satisfied. Light._

_“What do you say we break out the champagne?” Whizzer asks, poking Marvin in the stomach lightly._

_“I say that’s a great idea.”_

_Whizzer flips the covers off and jumps out of bed. He brings the bottle over, along with two flutes, and Marvin props the pillows against the headboard and sits back. Whizzer pours for both of them and climbs in to sit next to Marvin._

_“To… What are we toasting to?” Whizzer asks._

_“To first times,” Marvin says._

_“To first times. To pretty boys who make me feel good.”_

_“To poor Eleanor downstairs who thinks she has a chance.”_

_Whizzer bursts out laughing and nearly spills his champagne everywhere. He sets it down on the bedside table and pushes himself into Marvin’s side in hysterics. Marvin sets his drink aside and puts his arm around Whizzer and they laugh together. Tears of mirth are leaking out of Whizzer’s eyes, and he wipes the back of his hand across his face._

_“Oh, Marvin, you’re cruel.”_

_“Just being honest.”_

_“If we’re stating facts, I’ve heard that if you give a blow job with a mouthful of champagne, it feels amazing.”_

_“Is that your way of telling me you want to try it?”_

_“Maybe. But not tonight. I’m tired. You wore me out, baby.”_

_Marvin laughs. “You’re tired? I did all the work.”_

_“Let’s drink to that.” Whizzer leans over and scoops up his flute, and Marvin gets his, and they clink their glasses together. They’re about to take a sip when Marvin says they should link arms like brides and grooms do when they toast—“We are enjoying champagne meant for newlyweds,” he quips—and Whizzer hooks his arm around Marvin’s and they drink. It’s not as easy as it looks in photos—it’s awkward trying to make it work and Marvin jostles his hand and champagne runs down his arm—but they’re laughing and enjoying themselves and that’s all that matters._


	7. Chapter 7

Whizzer should have known he wouldn’t be able to stay away. Following the first invitation to visit, more had followed, and he had accepted them all against his better judgment. Sometimes they went out to eat and sometimes they went to Marvin and Trina’s and played card games and had wine and cheese. Whizzer was beginning to feel more comfortable around Marvin, and he did like having Marvin back in his life in some capacity, even if it was just a fraction of what it had been. That didn’t mean he wasn’t angry anymore—he was still struggling to reconcile this Marvin with the Marvin he had known and the Marvin who had abandoned him—but he was slowly but surely getting to know this new Marvin. And it was a slow process. And, at times, an awkward one.

One evening, Whizzer was over at their apartment for dinner; they had been playing Hearts, but when a timer dinged in the kitchen, Trina jumped up to go get the casserole she’d prepared out of the oven. Whizzer and Marvin were left alone together and the room fell silent. It became apparent just how much Trina had carried the conversation—or, at least, how much she had bridged the conversation between the two of them.

“Whizzer,” Marvin said, clearing his throat quietly.

“Marvin.”

“How have you been over the last…” Marvin trailed off. “I haven’t really asked yet.” Marvin halted over his words. He clasped and unclasped his hands. Whizzer suspected what he really meant was that they hadn’t actually been alone together until now.

“Good. You?” Making conversation had never been so difficult.

“Good. How’s your family?”

“Good. My sister has three kids now.”

Marvin smiled, but it was a hesitant smile, as though he was unsure if it was allowed.

“You always did like kids.”

“Did your mom...?” Whizzer didn’t know how to ask if she was dead. Ten years ago she had been in the hospital, seriously ill. That’s why Marvin had gone home after graduation instead of across the country with Whizzer.

“She recovered.”

“That’s good.” Whizzer swallowed. They were silent for a minute. 

“I don’t know how to be your friend,” Marvin said.

Whizzer understood. He didn’t know how to talk to Marvin. So much life had passed since they saw each other last. Whizzer didn’t know him anymore. Ten years ago, it was easy. So easy. There was no awkwardness, no stuttering. This attempt at a conversation was painful, to put it mildly. Perhaps, if things hadn’t ended the way they had, it wouldn’t have been so difficult, but... 

The end of their relationship had been given no closure, and Whizzer had given up searching for it. He had looked inside himself, combed through every memory, trying to understand why Marvin would have just vanished. He’d spent years trying to work it out, and he still had no idea what had happened. Marvin was there one day and gone the next. No explanations. He just vanished. Whizzer had waited and waited and waited until he had no choice but to accept that Marvin was never coming back, abandon his post-graduation plans, which had all included Marvin in some way or another, and start over from scratch. And it had hurt. It had hurt more than he let on to other people. He’d been severely depressed for years, suicidal for a while, until a discerning friend made him seek help. He’d recovered slowly, but there was still a heaviness he couldn’t shake. The closure he’d never gotten. The reason why. 

Marvin looked like he was about to say something else when Trina reappeared. She walked up behind Marvin and ran her hands across his shoulders, massaging his neck. She leaned down and kissed him lightly. He kissed back. Whizzer looked away.

“It’ll be ready in a few minutes. Just have to let it set. I love you,” she said, kissing him again.

“You too,” he said back.

Whizzer stood suddenly, the chair scraping the floor, heart pounding, head spinning. “I’ve just remembered I was supposed to meet a friend for a drink. I completely lost track of time. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

Trina was gracious, walking him to the door, thanking him for visiting, saying she was sorry he had to leave early, but Marvin… Marvin looked bewildered, a bit upset, perhaps even a bit apologetic. Whizzer needed to get out of there. It was painful to hear someone who wasn’t him say those three little words to Marvin. It made sense, of course, that Trina would love him, and that Marvin would love her back—they were getting married, after all—but he hadn’t expected hearing it to hurt quite so much.


	8. Chapter 8

_The only light on in the room is a small lamp on the dresser across from the bed. It fills the room with a dim, yellow glow. Whizzer is laying over Marvin’s chest, dressed only in briefs, fiddling with something on the bedside table. He rolls back over, nearly catching Marvin in the face with his elbow, and they both laugh. Whizzer leans over him, hand gently cupping his cheek, thumbing at the corner of his mouth, and smiles down at him. Marvin reaches down and runs his hand up the outside of Whizzer’s thigh, over his hip, and up his ribcage. Whizzer ducks his head down and mouths at Marvin’s collarbones. Marvin pushes his head back, exposing more of his neck, and Whizzer kisses and sucks his way up. He moves along Marvin’s jaw and plants a light kiss on the soft spot behind his ear._

_“I think—” Whizzer starts, and then stops._

_Marvin runs his hands over Whizzer’s back. Marvin can’t fathom how Whizzer’s skin is still so soft and smooth in his early twenties. Marvin’s back was spotted with sun scars and freckles and all manner of bumps and unsightly marks by the time he was in his late teens. He loves the feel of Whizzer’s perfect skin beneath his hand._

_“What do you think?” he asks absentmindedly._

_“I think… I think I might love you.”_

_Marvin stills, goes rigid beneath him. Whizzer is looking at him so earnestly, so honestly, and Marvin has never heard those words uttered to him before. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard those words from anyone, not even his family. But here is Whizzer, a man he has slowly been building a relationship with for nearly a year now, telling him he might love him, and Marvin doesn’t know how to receive those words._

_Whizzer’s eyes are wide and unsure now. Marvin hasn’t responded yet. He’s barely even acknowledged Whizzer’s confession beyond tensing up the moment he said it._

_“I just… thought you should know,” Whizzer says quietly. He pushes himself up and rolls away from Marvin, putting some space between them to complement Marvin’s continued silence._

_When Marvin thinks about it, really thinks about it, he comes to the startling conclusion that he, too, might be in love. It sounds so cheesy to think about, and he hates to use the phrase “in love,” but there isn’t much else what he feels for Whizzer can be. Whizzer is everything to him. If he had to choose one person’s company for the rest of his life, he would pick Whizzer in a heartbeat. When he gets home at the end of the day, worn out from his job and his classes, he just wants to see Whizzer. When he has good news, the first person he tells is Whizzer. When he has bad news, the first person he tells is Whizzer. When he sees something completely innocuous, like a lizard sunning itself on a brick wall, he’s sure to tell Whizzer about it when he sees him next. When he’s upset, the only person he wants to be with is Whizzer. His life is consumed by Whizzer, and it feels right. That’s how it is when you’re in love. That’s how it should be._

_Heart hammering in his chest, and completely out of his depth, never having loved anyone before, he rolls toward Whizzer, realizing Whizzer is probably humiliated and hurt by Marvin’s silence, and scoots up behind him. He slips an arm over Whizzer’s waist and finds his hand. Whizzer’s hand is limp on the bed and doesn’t respond when Marvin takes it._

_“Whizzer.”_

_Whizzer doesn’t acknowledge him._

_“Whizzer.”_

_“What?” His voice is small._

_“I’m sorry—”_

_“It’s okay,” Whizzer says quickly. “Just forget I said anything.”_

_“No, listen to me. I’m sorry for not saying anything right away. I think I might love you, too.”_

_“You don’t have to say it to try to make me feel better,” Whizzer says, voice quiet._

_Marvin presses on his shoulder and Whizzer rolls onto his back. He doesn’t look at Marvin. Marvin takes his face in his hands._

_“When have I ever said something I didn’t mean just to make you feel better?”_

_Whizzer takes a deep breath and turns his head away. He brings a hand to press to his eyebrows._

_“I had to think about it, that’s all,” Marvin says. “No one’s ever told me they love me before. Hell, my own parents have never even told me they love me. It took me a minute. But I’m pretty sure I love you, too.” Marvin gently nudges Whizzer’s head back to look at him. “You hear me? I love you, too. I mean it. More than anything I’ve ever said in my life. You hear me?”_

_He runs his thumb across Whizzer’s cheek. Whizzer’s looking up at him now, eyes shining, glistening with unshed tears, and Marvin leans down and presses a soft kiss to his lips. Whizzer chases Marvin’s lips when he pulls away. Marvin presses their foreheads together._

_“A man just told me he loves me and all I get is a little peck?” Whizzer says, poking Marvin in the ribs._

_“I didn’t realize there was a rulebook I was supposed to be following. What am I supposed to do?”_

_“Something more than that!”_

_“I’d like to remind you that a man also told me he loves me tonight—first, I might add—and yet I don’t see him doing anything. I didn’t even get a kiss.”_

_Whizzer pushes up and kisses Marvin, and it’s languid at first, but, as always happens with them, it quickly deepens and turns more urgent. Marvin rolls his body against Whizzer’s and Whizzer lets out a series of little gasps._

_“A celebratory fuck—is that where you’re headed?”_

_“Maybe,” Marvin says. “I’ve never fucked someone who loved me before.”_

_Whizzer laughs. “You have. You just didn’t know I loved you at the time.”_

_Marvin rolls his body against Whizzer’s again. “How long have you loved me but not said anything?”_

_“A month, probably.”_

_“A month?”_

_“A month.”_

_When Marvin rolls his body against Whizzer’s once more, Whizzer pushes up, and they both let out quiet moans as they press into each other._

_“I’m glad you told me,” Marvin says as their bodies collide again. Whizzer’s neck is arched, the sensitive skin there exposed, and Marvin licks a wet stripe from his collarbones to the underside of his jaw. Whizzer squirms beneath him._

_“That’s disgusting.”_

_“I thought you liked it when I use my tongue,” Marvin says, all innocence._

_“Yes, but not there! Wipe my neck off, you pig.”_

_Marvin laughs and takes his sleep shirt from beneath his pillow—he figures it’s about time he washed it and got a new one anyway—and dries Whizzer’s neck. He tosses the shirt behind him and kisses up Whizzer’s neck instead._

_It’s then that Whizzer drops his legs open and Marvin settles between them. He rocks their bodies together, hot, only separated by a couple thin layers of cloth. Whizzer reaches down between them and adds his hand into the mix, touching and rubbing until they’re both fully hard and panting. Marvin grinds down one more time before pulling away. Whizzer kicks off his briefs and tosses them onto the floor. Marvin, who is reaching into the bedside table for lube and a condom, has yet to remove his._

_Whizzer tugs Marvin closer. He takes the lube and condom out of his hands and sets them aside. He pulls at Marvin’s underwear and Marvin shuffles even closer. Whizzer sits up and presses his face to the front of Marvin’s briefs, inhaling his musky, warm smell, and Marvin gasps and runs his hands through Whizzer’s hair. Whizzer finally tugs his briefs down and pulls out his cock. It’s a pretty cock, Whizzer has said before, smooth and flushed and curved upwards. Marvin’s back may be pockmarked and spotted, but at least he has a pretty cock. At least he has that going for him._

_Whizzer presses a light kiss to the tip, and his lips are wetted slightly by the precum already starting to gather there._

_“Gorgeous,” Whizzer says, kissing it again._

_Marvin’s eyes flutter closed and he lets out a sigh which quickly becomes a groan as Whizzer takes him into his mouth. He looks down at Whizzer and finds Whizzer looking up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, lips stretched around him. Whizzer bobs his head back and forth, working his tongue expertly and absolutely drooling all over Marvin’s cock, not that Marvin minds. He loves a wet, slippery blow job, and Whizzer’s certainly good at those. Whizzer’s saliva is dripping all over the bed as he sucks him off, and while it would certainly make Marvin self-conscious to slobber quite that much, Whizzer doesn’t care in the slightest._

_When he pulls off, Marvin’s cock is slick and dripping, and Whizzer’s mouth is similarly wet and red. He snatches up the shirt Marvin had used to clean his neck earlier and wipes off his mouth and chin. Marvin puts a hand on himself, but only briefly, and then reaches down to touch Whizzer. Whizzer inhales sharply and jerks his hips forward._

_“Fuck me,” Whizzer whispers, and drops his legs open in invitation._

_Whizzer prefers missionary over every other position, and Marvin doesn’t care, so long as he gets to be with Whizzer. He once asked him why he liked missionary so much, and Whizzer had shrugged and said he liked feeling Marvin’s weight pressing down on him and into him at the same time._

_Marvin crawls between Whizzer’s legs and Whizzer hands him the lube. Marvin squirts some in his hand and gets Whizzer warmed up; Whizzer prepped in the shower earlier that day, so there isn’t much Marvin really has to do, but he fucks Whizzer with his fingers for a couple minutes or so, until Whizzer says he’s ready. Marvin reaches for the condom._

_Technically, they don’t have to use a condom anymore—they’ve both been tested for STDs and they’re exclusive—but it makes cleanup a lot easier. Marvin rolls the condom on and gets himself slickened up. Whizzer hikes his legs up, hooking his arms under his knees, and beckons Marvin forward._

_“Fuck me,” he says again._

_Marvin gets himself situated between Whizzer’s legs. He runs his hands up and down the insides of Whizzer’s thighs, which makes him shiver, and then scoots closer and nudges at Whizzer’s hole. He pushes forward until just the tip is in, and then leans over Whizzer, bending down to kiss him._

_“I love you,” Marvin gasps as he slides in. It’s a beautiful feeling, saying that to someone with whom he shares the most intimate of pleasures, someone he adores, someone he would drop everything for if he asked, someone he loves and who loves him back._

_Whizzer lets out a stream of breathy moans. “Marv, baby, I love you, too. Fuck me, baby.”_

_So Marvin does. He doesn’t go too hard or too fast—he wants to slow time down, make this moment last—and he realizes that maybe instead of fucking, what they’re really doing is making love. A cold shiver shoots down his spine at that realization and he leans forward and kisses Whizzer, trying to convey everything he doesn’t have the words to express._

_Marvin comes first. Whizzer wraps his legs around him and pulls him in closer, as if Marvin could push any further into Whizzer than he already is, and he comes. He jerks in Whizzer’s grasp, gasping hotly into Whizzer’s mouth as his orgasm crests and rushes through. He thrusts sloppily a couple more times, but it’s not enough to bring Whizzer over, and so he pulls out, ties the end of the condom and puts it somewhere, and then they interlace their fingers and work their hands over Whizzer’s cock together until Whizzer comes too, Marvin’s name on his lips._

_Whizzer pulls Marvin up to lie with him, and they’re both sweaty and gross but they wouldn’t have it any other way. They murmur how they love each other again, and Marvin is almost asleep when he feels Whizzer wipe him down with a damp washcloth and then get in the shower. He drags himself out of bed to go to the bathroom after Whizzer gets out and then presses himself close to Whizzer when he climbs back into bed. Whizzer wraps an arm around him and kisses his forehead and he lets himself be rocked to sleep in Whizzer’s arms._


	9. Chapter 9

Trina remembered the day she met Marvin; she had forgotten to get rice vinegar for a dish she was making and had to run back to the store. She was so worried she wouldn’t get the dish finished in time for the potluck her street hosted every year that she wasn’t paying any attention to where she was going and knocked a glass jar of pickles out of Marvin’s hands as she rushed down an aisle. The jar shattered and sprayed pickle juice all over the bottom of Marvin’s work pants. Horribly embarrassed, she promised to pay to get them dry cleaned and invited Marvin to the potluck to make up for it. That evening, she had completely forgotten about inviting the handsome stranger from the store to the potluck until he showed up. They’d gotten to know each other and eventually started dating. And here they were, six years later, engaged to be married and living together. How time had flown.

She was making that dish again tonight; a few of her friends were coming over to visit and play a few rounds of Pinochle. Marvin would no doubt stay holed up in his study while her friends were over; he wasn’t a particular fan of company of any sort and found it a chore even when his own friends came over. Except… Whizzer. Marvin and Whizzer must have been really close friends, Trina supposed, since Marvin never grumbled about the evenings Whizzer was scheduled to come over for dinner; he even extended a couple invitations himself, which was very out of character for him. But she always worried about Marvin being so isolated from other people, and if Whizzer could bring him out of his shell a bit, she wasn’t going to be complaining. 

With only half an hour before her friends were set to arrive, she went to knock on Marvin’s bedroom door. It was ajar and she pushed it open and leaned into the room. Marvin was lying on his bed, the lights dimmed, reading a book.

“Hon? Did you want to eat before the girls come over? Dinner’s almost ready if you do.” 

Marvin didn’t answer. She assumed he hadn’t heard, so she repeated, “Did you want to eat—?”

“Can’t you at least wait until I put the book down to ask me again?” Marvin snapped, dropping the book onto his chest and huffing exasperatedly. “I was right in the middle of something. I don’t care when I eat. I’ll eat whenever’s convenient.”

Trina nodded and backed out of the room without a verbal acknowledgement. It was unlike Marvin to be so testy and irritable with her. In the six years they’d been together, they rarely argued. If there was ever a disagreement, Marvin deferred to what she wanted, what her opinion was, what her decision was. Marvin avoided conflict, and while it was nice not to fight with him the way her friends fought with their husbands, it felt odd that she always got her way. She felt like she was… undermining Marvin’s equality in some ways. She wanted them to have an equal partnership, but Marvin always yielded to her, no matter what. If he expressed an opinion about something and she had a differing opinion, he would say, “That’s a better option,” or “That’s a better idea” and dismiss his own ideas. If Trina wanted to buy a new tablecloth or a new set of plates and asked Marvin to provide input on color choices, he always framed his answers around her—“Whatever you think looks best,” “I like the one you picked,” “You know better than I do.” 

Trina sighed. She’d talk to Marvin later, after her friends had gone. His being combative and irritable over the past couple weeks was not like him at all. She felt like he was drawing into himself more and more now, as their wedding planning continued, and it was, admittedly, stressful for both of them, but she hadn’t realized it was taking such a toll on him in particular. She sighed again. She needed to reach out to Marvin more often. He didn’t always ask for a shoulder to lean on when he needed it. She could be that shoulder—no, she _wanted_ to be that shoulder. If only she could reach him.


	10. Chapter 10

_Their first argument isn’t so much an argument as it is hurt feelings. Whizzer snaps at Marvin early one morning, when Marvin gets up for class, about always turning the bathroom light on before closing the door and shining it right in his face and can’t he be a little more considerate? Marvin, hurt by his tone of voice, dresses quickly and leaves. Usually, he’ll dress and get ready for the day and then go back and lay with Whizzer for another fifteen minutes before kissing him goodbye and going to class, but this morning, he doesn’t. He leaves and goes to class early. The classroom is locked when he gets there, so he finds an empty room to sit in and wait. He folds his arms on the desk and puts his head down._

_He doesn’t understand why Whizzer snapped at him like that. He’s never expressed displeasure with Marvin turning the light on before. Marvin hasn’t really thought about the fact that the light does shine in Whizzer’s face when he does that, but Whizzer could have just pointed it out and he would have gladly waited to turn the light on until after he’d closed the door._

_He sighs. Maybe he’s just being oversensitive. Maybe he should have stayed to talk to Whizzer about it instead of leaving without addressing it. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what you’re supposed to do when your partner hurts your feelings, whether it’s intentional or not. Whizzer is the only serious relationship he’s ever had. He worries he did the wrong thing by walking out without talking it through first. He just hadn’t known what else to do. If he had stayed, he doesn’t know what he would have said. He would have gotten upset, probably, maybe cried, might have said something he would have regretted later. So maybe it is a good thing he left. He doesn’t know._

_He goes to class but can’t focus. He wonders if his leaving made Whizzer angrier. He wonders if he should just go back to spending most nights in his own room across campus. He wonders about a lot during the hour and fifteen minutes he’s in class, not paying attention to the lecture. When time is finally up and he leaves the classroom, he sees Whizzer sitting on the floor across from the door, his back against the wall. When they make eye contact, Whizzer scrambles up. Marvin looks at his watch._

_“You should be in class.”_

_“I know.”_

_Whizzer hands him a cup of coffee he’s no doubt picked up at the campus coffee shop. Marvin takes it for what it is—a peace offering—and they walk outside together, the smell swirling in the air between them. Marvin loves coffee, Whizzer hates it, but he’s learning to love the smell because it reminds him of Marvin._

_There’s not much they can say to each other in public about what happened this morning, so they don’t speak until they’re settled in a private study room in the library._

_“I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that,” Whizzer says, wringing his hands. “I’m really sorry. The light— it’s really not a big deal. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”_

_Marvin extends his hand out across the table. Whizzer slips his hand over his and they curl their fingers around each other._

_“It— My feelings were hurt,” Marvin says, although he’s not sure if adults use this phrase or if it’s reserved for children who are just learning to express how they feel. “I didn’t know it bothered you so much. If you had just asked, I would have gladly turned the light on after I closed the door.”_

_“I know, and I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel bad about sleeping there because I want you to sleep there. What can I— What can I do to make this better?”_

_“Just keep holding my hand.” Holding Whizzer’s hand can fix anything. Everything._

_“I love you,” Whizzer says._

_Marvin leans forward and presses his forehead against Whizzer’s. “I love you too.”_

_The two of them usually spend the weekends away from campus, and one Friday evening, as the end of the semester looms, Whizzer asks Marvin what their plans for the weekend are—they can have one last free weekend before all their time is consumed by the final week and a half of classes and studying for exams. Whizzer throws out several ideas, but Marvin doesn’t like any of them. After Marvin has shot down every one of Whizzer’s ideas for the past thirty minutes, Whizzer throws his hands up in exasperated. “Well, what do you want to do, then? You don’t want this, you don’t want that—I haven’t heard you throw out a single idea so far, so until you can come up with some ideas, I guess we’re not going anywhere.”_

_Marvin chuckles. “Calm down, calm down. I do have an idea.”_

_Whizzer leans forward. “What is it?”_

_Marvin grins slyly. “I’m not telling you. It’s a surprise.”_

_Whizzer thumps his head on the desk with a groan. “I hate surprises.”_

_“I know you do. You’ll just have to trust me. It’s not overnight, though, so you can pick something for Sunday.” He sits on the edge of the chair and rests his head on Whizzer’s back. “We’ll split it. I do something I want, and you do something you want.”_

_Whizzer takes a deep breath. Marvin can hear his heart beating through his ribcage. “Fine,” Whizzer says on the exhale. “Fine. What I pick will be a surprise for you, too.”_

_Marvin wraps his arms around Whizzer as if to hug him, but instead, he runs his hands up Whizzer’s chest and pinches his nipples._

_Whizzer yelps and throws Marvin off him. He backs away, his arms clapped protectively across his chest. Marvin laughs, leaning back in his chair._

_“Stop it,” Whizzer says, throwing Marvin a warning glare. “Don’t be mean. Pinching is mean. Biting is good. Sucking is good. Touching is good. Pinching is not nice.”_

_“Come here. I won’t pinch this time. Promise.”_

_Whizzer walks over slowly, arms still over his chest, and Marvin hooks his fingers in his belt loops and pulls him in. Marvin keeps his promise. He doesn’t pinch._

_The next morning, Marvin wrangles Whizzer into the car—finally—after about an hour of Whizzer trying to fix his hair in the bathroom; he kept saying, “Just a couple more minutes” and “I’ll be ready in a second, I promise,” and it just kept going on and on and Marvin was tired of waiting and the day was passing quickly, so he finally flung open the bathroom door and ushered him out. Whizzer is still fussing with his hair in the mirror, but at least he’s in the car now. Marvin hops in the driver’s seat. Whizzer spares a glance away from the mirror._

_“Where are you taking me?”_

_“You’ll see.”_

_Marvin wants to take Whizzer to his favorite spot along the river, where there’s a wonderful view of the bridge and the water looks like it goes on forever. He and Whizzer like getting out, away from the hundreds of students that might harass or bother them, away from the reality that they can’t really be together in public the way they’d like unless they’re alone. The spot Marvin’s taking them to requires a bit of a hike to get there, and he’s rarely encountered other people over the last three years he’s been going. He’s surprised that he hasn’t brought Whizzer yet, but he’s rectifying that now._

_Ten minutes into the drive, Whizzer flips the sun shade up and asks, “Where are we going?”_

_“You are so impatient,” Marvin says, chuckling. “You’ll see.”_

_Marvin knows Whizzer hates not knowing where he’s being taken and insists on being told before he gets in the car. But Marvin also knows that he, Marvin, is the only person allowed to take Whizzer somewhere without telling him first. It doesn’t keep Whizzer from continuing to ask, however, and he asks three more times before Marvin parks the car in a wooded area. When they get out, the air is sweet-smelling, perfumed by the trees and the greenery growing on the forest floor. The air is chilly._

_Marvin takes Whizzer’s hand and leads him up the path toward the river. It’s about a seven-minute walk, and they chat along the way about their quickly-approaching finals and their plans to take a road trip across the country together. It’ll be one last hurrah— a final send-off from the world in which writing papers and taking tests are the priorities in life. He never thought college would change him so much._

_Marvin never imagined falling in love in college; to be perfectly honest, he never imagined falling it love at all, at any point in his life. When he imagined his future, it never included anyone else. Until Whizzer came along. Now, the only future he can imagine is one in which Whizzer is always there, standing beside him, loving him, holding his hand, supporting him. No matter how Marvin’s life proceeds, he wants Whizzer to be in it._

_They reach the end of the path and step into the sun. They walk out along the grassy bank to the water and climb down onto the rocks. The sunlight glints off the surface of the river—it’s a beautiful, calm day, and the water is as blue as the sky. Marvin squeezes Whizzer’s hand._

_“I come here sometimes,” he says. “I wanted to bring you.”_

_Whizzer squeezes his hand back. “It’s gorgeous, Marvin. I love it. I love you.”_

_Marvin pulls his shoes and socks off and dips his feet in the water. Whizzer does the same, and they sit there for a while, Marvin leaning into Whizzer’s side, letting the sun warm him._

_“So, you know how we’re planning on taking that road trip right after graduation?” Marvin asks._

_“Yeah?”_

_“So, I was wondering, because obviously we’ll be staying together the whole time, sharing a tent and hotel rooms, and I was wondering… Well, I was wondering if it didn’t have to end. If we could, kind of, make it… permanent?”_

_“Marvin Cohen, are you asking me to move in with you?”_

_“Well, yes? As roommates, you know? Or, well, I mean, I was thinking we’d be roommates on the lease only, because I’d really like to share a room… and a bed… with you.”_

_Whizzer puts his arm around Marvin’s shoulders, squeezes him close, and kisses his temple. “Yes, yes, yes. I want to live with you.”_

_“I’d be really nice to have our own place, you know? Not have to constantly go to hotels when we want to spend all weekend in bed and not worry about people constantly banging on the door or interrupting.”_

_Whizzer kisses him again. “I want that with you. I love you so much.”_

_“As long as my family doesn’t find out I’m shacking up with a guy, I’ll be fine.”_

_“Roommates, remember? Roommates is safe. We’ll just set up the other bedroom to make it look like one of us lives there when people visit and we’ll be alright.”_

_Marvin grins and wraps his arms around Whizzer. He kisses behind Whizzer’s ear and whispers that he loves him. Whizzer’s right. They’ll be alright._


	11. Chapter 11

Marvin got home from work at five-fifteen every day, and Trina always liked to have dinner ready for him as soon as he walked through the door. He had been very surprised the first time he’d gotten home and Trina had dinner all laid out on the table. Four years after moving in together, he was still surprised. He never expected her to make dinner for him but she liked doing it for him. Today, however, she was very busy and hadn’t even started on the meal yet. 

She was so preoccupied that she didn’t hear Marvin get home. He stepped into the kitchen to say hello and she could hardly believe it was already a quarter after five. “Hi, hon, how was your day?”

He sighed. “It was all right.”

Trina studied him. He looked sleep deprived. She approached him and ran her hands along his shoulders. She kissed his cheek. “Go take a long, warm shower and try to relax.”

He heaved another sigh and nodded. He got up and left the room and Trina turned back to the cheesecake she was making for a friend’s bridal shower. She was looking forward to her own bridal shower. She and Marvin had finally decided on a date and a venue, but there was so much work to be done in the meantime—invitations and honeymoon plans and dress fittings and god knows what else; she had a checklist in her room that she had been using.

She did wish Marvin would be a little more enthusiastic about it all, but in the past six years, she had come to learn that unbridled enthusiasm was not in Marvin’s nature. He was slow, calm, and steadfast, which were all laudable traits, but she did sometimes find herself wanting him to show a little more enthusiasm than he was wont to do.

As she cooked, she realized it had been a while since she suggested Marvin take a shower, but she had yet to hear the shower start. She put her cheesecake-making on hold and went to see if Marvin was alright. She found him fast asleep in his room, curled up tightly on top of the covers, hugging himself, the troubled look on his face slowly ebbing away. The hint of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, the crease lines in his face smoothing out. He looked younger than she had ever seen him. She draped a blanket over him and closed his door quietly so the noise she was making in the kitchen wouldn’t wake him.

When Marvin shuffled out a couple hours later, he somehow looked worse than before. His eyes were red-rimmed and he was rubbing at them, which was no doubt making the redness worse. 

“How are you feeling, hon?”

“I think I slept too long.” His voice was scratchy.

He walked up to Trina and hugged her. He was much more affectionate than she was, and needed a lot more human contact, so she felt bad about extricating herself from the hug. He tried to tighten his arms, keep her close for a little longer, but she ducked out from under them and patted his shoulder.

“I really need to make dinner. You’re welcome to help if you’d like.”

He let her go and went into his study. The door clicked shut. It was her turn to sigh. Affection was one area in which they weren’t necessarily compatible. Marvin needed a lot more of it; she didn’t like it much at all. She was trying to come to a good compromise, as for six years now, Marvin had accommodated her dislike of physical contact, but she had not tried to return the favor by being more affectionate to accommodate him. It was her problem that she needed to work on. It wasn’t fair to him.

She decided dinner could wait and went to his study. She knocked on the door lightly, and when she received no response, tried the handle. It was locked. She knocked again.

“Marvin? Are you all right?”

She heard his swivel chair being pushed back, and footsteps, and then the door opened. 

“Sorry,” he said, indicating the lock. “Force of habit.” His eyes were red and watery.

“Marvin… are you doing all right?”

“This?” He gestured to his wet eyes. “I kicked up some dust that irritated my eyes. I couldn’t get it out.”

Trina had a hard time believing that. His desk was spotless. He wiped it down once a week. Something was going on with her fiancé that he wasn’t telling her.

“Marvin, do you really expect me to believe that?”

He sighed and went and sat down heavily in his chair. “No.”

“What’s wrong, hon?”

“It’s just… work. I have an important deadline coming up that I’m trying to meet, and it’s just— It’s really stressful.” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’m okay. Just tired.”

Trina kissed his cheek and left, closing the door behind her. Work might be part of the reason he was tired and wan and not being himself, but that couldn’t be all. She hoped it wasn’t that she had pushed him away when he hugged her. She really hoped she wasn’t adding to his stress levels by not allowing him to relieve his stress by hugging her. She went to start on dinner, promising herself that she would try to do better about understanding Marvin’s need for frequent physical contact. She would try to be better for him. She wanted to be there for him when he needed.


	12. Chapter 12

_Whizzer comes barreling into Marvin’s room one afternoon, looking extremely upset and repeatedly wiping his palms on his jeans. He stands awkwardly at the end of Marvin’s bed._

_“You okay?” Marvin says. Whizzer usually just climbs up to join him._

_“No.”_

_Marvin reaches a hand out and Whizzer clasps it. “What’s wrong?”_

_“I— I just need to be with you.”_

_Marvin sets his book and notebook aside. “Yeah, yeah. Come here.” He scoots back against the wall and Whizzer climbs on the bed and sits between his legs. Marvin massages his neck and shoulders, and the tension he’s holding there starts to ebb away. He continues to mess with his jeans, pinching at the pockets and the thighs, and Marvin’s not sure why._

_“I love you,” Marvin says, nosing the collar of Whizzer’s shirt down and kissing his neck. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”_

_Whizzer sighs, and it’s a shaky, unhappy sigh, not any one of the contented, exasperated, tired, or pleased sighs Marvin’s come to know so well._

_“A guy I used to hook up with, he’s in the same class as me. The one in the basement of the humanities building.”_

_Marvin hums that he’s listening, though he’s not a particular fan of hearing about a guy Whizzer used to hook up with._

_“He cornered me after class today and tried to kiss me. And he, um… he, um… put his hand between my legs.” Whizzer messed with his jeans again. Knowing the guy had touched him there must be making him feel dirty, and Marvin reached around and unbuttoned and unzipped them._

_“Come on, hon,” Marvin says, and he never uses pet names—that’s Whizzer’s deal, always—but using one now feels necessary, despite how unfamiliar it feels on his tongue. “Take these off. It’s bothering you. It’s okay. That’s an awful thing to happen to you. Did he do anything else?”_

_Whizzer wriggles out of the jeans and flings them across the room. “I shoved him off but I’m afraid he’ll do it again.”_

_Marvin leans against Whizzer’s back, hooking his chin over his shoulder and putting his hands on his thighs, comforting, trying to replace the bad touch with a good one. He kisses Whizzer’s neck again, and Whizzer lets out another sigh, but to Marvin’s relief, it’s one he recognizes—on the way to being content. “How about I pick you up from that class from now on,” Marvin suggests. “How does that sound?_

_“We’ve only got a few more left.”_

_“I’ll still pick you up. If you want.”_

_“Yes, I do.”_

_“I will. I love you.”_

_Marvin wraps his arms around Whizzer’s middle and squeezes, trying to let him know he’s safe and cared for._

_The guy is waiting for Whizzer again that Thursday, but Marvin is waiting there too, and when he tries to grab Whizzer and push him against the wall, Marvin forces himself between them. Being denied access to Whizzer makes him mad, and when he starts to become overly aggressive, Marvin delivers a quick punch to the solar plexus and the guy stumbles back, winded._

_“Back off. He’s not interested.”_

_The guy wheezes. “Cowardly, getting someone to fight for him. Can’t the little pussy defend himself?”_

_That makes Marvin angry. “Whizzer might have reservations about breaking your nose but I don’t.”_

_He steps forward threateningly, fist curled and poised, and the guy scurries off._

_In the empty hallway, Whizzer takes Marvin’s hand. They both sigh and look at each other. Whizzer’s other hand comes to cup the back of Marvin’s neck._

_“You’re so sweet, I never would have guessed you had a mean streak. Tough guy.”_

_Marvin is suddenly embarrassed. He shrugs. “Comes from having an older brother, I guess.”_

_He flexes his knuckles. Whizzer brings his hand up to his lips and kisses them._

_“I’ve got to go to class,” Marvin says, checking his watch._

_“I’ll walk with you,” Whizzer says, squeezing his hand and leading him down the hallway. Marvin leans into his side and they hold hands until they see someone else, and then it’s as though they hadn’t been walking closely together at all._

_Marvin shows up to meet Whizzer after his class every afternoon for the last few classes of the semester, and the guy glowers at both of them every time but leaves them alone._


	13. Chapter 13

The more Trina watched Whizzer and Marvin together over the next couple weeks, the way they would quickly avert their eyes if they made eye contact made her wonder if Whizzer had, at one time, been more than a friend to Marvin. She would watch Whizzer in particular, and notice the way he looked at Marvin when he thought no one was watching—there was an incredible sadness there, underwritten with distant longing—and she would wonder. Marvin was always quieter and more lost in his thoughts after spending time with Whizzer, and she felt a sadness from him as well. They said they had been friends in college but lost touch after graduation, but Trina was beginning to be sure there had to be more than just that to make them look at each other the way they did.

The next time they went out to dinner together, she asked Whizzer if he was seeing anyone, and Whizzer’s eyes flicked to Marvin for an instant before replying, “No.” Marvin was steadfastly refusing to look anywhere near Whizzer, and the tension was so thick Trina could have cut it with the butter knife she was holding. To clear the air, she asked about something else, something more lighthearted, and the moment passed, but Trina was beginning to grasp the gravity of the question she had asked, even if she didn’t understand why it had been such a loaded question. Something had definitely happened between them in the past, she was certain of it.

One morning, after Marvin had left for work, she slipped into his study and started pulling things out carefully. Marvin was always hyper-organized when it came to his desk, and he always had been, and he got upset if Trina so much as disrupted the placement of a single pen. She had always just accepted that Marvin was very particular about his desk, but now she wondered if he never wanted her to touch it because he had something in it that he didn’t want her to see. She emptied one drawer after another, carefully searching through each one, and then replaced it just as she found it so he wouldn’t notice. In the bottom left drawer, in the very back, under piles of manilla folders, she found one of his old accounting books and was instantly suspicious.

Marvin had taken a couple accounting classes at the local community college several years ago—he’d hated accounting, called it boring and useless, and grumbled and griped through several months of classes and homework. Deciding at the end that he didn’t want to add accounting skills to his resume after all, he’d tossed out his books, overwhelmingly glad to be rid of them. He’d said he’d thrown them all out, but here one was, tucked in the back of his desk drawer.

Trina flipped through it and a folded piece of paper was dislodged. She pulled it out and set the book facedown, open, and carefully unfolded the paper. It was worn and tearing at the creases, clearly having been unfolded and refolded probably hundreds of times. It was a letter, dated ten years back.

_Dear Marvin,_

_My hopes are that you discover this letter after you get home, though, knowing you, you’ll probably have forgotten to get your hat out of your suitcase and have to go looking for it and end up finding this. I want this to remind you that I am with you always, that the things I feel for you are not fleeting or trifling, that I adore you. You are my friend, my lover, my confidant, my healer, my supporter. You are more than anything I can describe._

_I don’t usually write letters, but you and I have never been usual. You bring out the best of me in the best of ways. You make me feel alive. The world feels right with you. I feel like myself with you. I am a better person for having loved you._

_I can’t believe you’re real sometimes. Remember when you called every night of spring break at three in the morning just to tell me you loved me? King of the phone bills, you were, and you’ve always been—calling me at all hours of the night, sometimes just to hear my voice, you said. That’s what I can’t believe. That someone loves me enough to call just to take comfort in my voice. But I feel the same way. I love to hear your voice. Your voice, your presence—you comfort me more than you’ll ever know._

_I’m writing this in bed—you’re leaving tomorrow at noon—and I’m looking at you sleeping beside me and I miss you already. I don’t want to say goodbye just yet. Obviously, I know it’s not a goodbye forever, and you’ve promised to call as soon as you get home to see your mother, and we’ll be together again soon, but it doesn’t make me want to let you go any more. I’m going to miss holding you and kissing you and being with you. What a wonder this past year and a half has been. What a wonder this night has been. What a wonder you are._

_All my love,_

_Whizzer_

So. Her suspicions had been correct. Whizzer had been more than a friend—much more than a friend—to Marvin. She thought she should have been angry, upset, jealous, but instead she just felt… sad.

She reread the letter, feeling the love that poured through Whizzer’s words. She knew she would never feel this strongly about Marvin. She loved him, yes, but this wasn’t just love—this was passion, complete devotion, and steadfast loyalty. Whizzer and Marvin had been together for a year and a half, according to this—such a short period of time—and yet they were fully and passionately committed to each other, if this letter was any indication. By comparison, she and Marvin had been together for six years and they had never been this way with each other. She had never felt this much for any person, and she wondered what she was standing in the way of now. They had loved each other more than anything, that was very clear. 

And—Trina was discomfited by this—they had been sleeping together. She and Marvin had gone into their relationship with the expectation to wait until marriage to have sex, and she was under the impression, or had been, that Marvin was as inexperienced as she was. They lived together as a couple and yet slept in separate beds, for god’s sake! But this letter… he and Whizzer were not only sharing a bed, but they had obviously been sleeping together— _What a wonder this night has been._

It all made sense now, why Whizzer and Marvin looked at each other the way they did. Trina suddenly felt very out of place in Marvin’s life. He and Whizzer had a history, a history that had ended abruptly for some reason, and it was an ending they were both clearly still upset by ten years on. 

Trina felt an immense sadness welling inside her. Why had they lost contact? What happened ten years ago that meant they wouldn’t see each other again for a decade? How could they have so suddenly given up everything they’d had—everything that was spelled out so beautifully in this letter? Why on earth would they have let that slip away from them?

She had so many questions, and so few answers.

She replaced the letter carefully, leaving Marvin’s desk looking as untouched as it had half an hour earlier.

Over the next couple days, she tried to piece it all together. The letter said they’d been together a year and a half, up through graduation. So their relationship must have begun approximately halfway through junior year. But Marvin had said they were college friends, so perhaps they were friends for longer than that, maybe from freshman or sophomore year, because Whizzer and Marvin had once mentioned in passing a time a drunk man had crashed a car into the student center, which had happened the fall of their sophomore year. So they must have been friends before they got together.

Their breakup, on the other hand... it happened post-graduation, clearly. Whizzer had written the letter the night before Marvin had gone home to see his sick mother—Marvin had told her about that soon after they’d gotten together. His family hadn’t attended his graduation because his mother was in the hospital with pneumonia and the outlook hadn’t been good, so Marvin had gone straight home after graduation instead of going on a cross-country road trip with a friend—was Whizzer the friend? 

And then something had happened. Marvin had gone home and they hadn’t seen each other again until they’d run into each other a month or so ago. It had been shocking and emotional for both of them; Trina had seen that then, but she had chalked it up to simply being old friends who had lost touch, which is what Marvin had said, and she’d had no reason to disbelieve him at the time. 

Whizzer’s letter made no allusion to never seeing each other again. He wasn’t saying goodbye forever, and he’d said that explicitly; they fully intended to see each other again. Or, at least... Whizzer had expected to see Marvin again. Something must have happened on Marvin’s end. 

It was after midnight one night when she thought about Marvin’s family—his older brother in particular. He was standoffish and rude and threw his weight around, bullying people into doing what he wanted. He was pushy and aggressive and Marvin always let people walk all over him so easily and she wondered… She had no idea what she was doing, but, despite knowing it could go very badly if she said the wrong thing, she picked up the phone and dialed Marvin’s older brother.


	14. Chapter 14

_Marvin’s mother is in the ICU on a ventilator and he goes to visit as soon as he gets home. He’s too exhausted from traveling and going to the hospital to call Whizzer that night, but he calls the next night, though, at two-thirty in the morning, and tells Whizzer how his mother is, how he’s doing, how he hasn’t even had time to unpack yet, how much he misses Whizzer already, how disappointed he is that their plans have to be put on hold. Whizzer can tell he’s exhausted and gently tells him to go to bed—they can talk tomorrow. They say I love you and goodnight and goodbye, and Marvin hangs up and go to bed._

_Marvin sleeps in a little later than usual in the morning, and when he finally rises and goes to the dining room for breakfast, Marvin’s older brother Brent is already there, slathering strawberry cream cheese onto a bagel. Marvin’s father isn’t there; Marvin assumes he’s gone to work already. Marvin takes a piece of toast and sits down. He reaches for the butter and the butter knife._

_“Who were you talking to last night?” Brent asks._

_“I’ve already told you this.”_

_“Your girlfriend.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Oh, really? Because when I called that number back, a man answered, calling you ‘baby.’”_

_The butter knife Marvin’s holding clatters to the table. He’s going to be sick._

_Brent stands, holding a cream cheese-covered knife._

_“Do you know what happens to people like you, Marvin?”_

_Marvin bolts from the table and flees outside. Brent follows, though at a leisurely pace, knowing Marvin can’t outrun him. Marvin reaches the tree on the far side of the yard and vomits, body heaving, eyes stinging, nose running. He throws up until he has nothing left in his stomach and then dry heaves for a minute, trying not to cry, trying not to be scared of what Brent’s going to do to him. He has no idea what Brent’s going to do to him._

_Brent reaches him. He yanks him up and twists his arm behind his back. Brent leans down until his face is inches away from Marvin’s._

_“I will kill you,” Brent says, voice low and dangerous, “if you ever see him again. I’ll kill both of you.”_

_Marvin’s blood runs cold. He’s never been truly afraid of his brother before—growing up, Brent threatened him with violence and hurt him plenty of times, but it wasn’t ever life-threatening—but the hatred in his eyes right now and the threat to kill him… Marvin’s never feared for his life before, but he looks at his brother and thinks Brent might actually do it. Might kill him. Might kill Whizzer._

_He goes limp in Brent’s grip. A surrender._


	15. Chapter 15

Trina looked up Whizzer’s address in the phonebook—she hadn’t known Whizzer’s surname, but with a first name like his, the Whizzer Brown she found couldn’t possibly be anyone else—and drove over, his letter to Marvin tucked carefully in her purse. Whizzer was surprised to see her at the door, but said it was good to see her, invited her in, and offered to make her tea, which she accepted. He handed her a blueberry muffin along with her tea, and she ate, though she was jittery and nervous at what she was about to bring up. She finished what Whizzer had given her and pushed the plate and mug out of the way. Whizzer had gotten up to put the rest of the muffins away, and she took a deep breath and readied herself for what she knew was about to be a difficult conversation. She had to bring this up, sooner rather than later. It was only fair—to her, to Marvin, and to Whizzer. She took the plunge and jumped straight into it.

“Did he really call you every night to tell you he loved you?”

Whizzer’s head snapped up to look at her. 

“Who?” he asked, though his slight delay in answering told Trina he knew exactly who she was talking about.

“Marvin.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Whizzer said, scooping up Trina’s plate and glass and carrying it to the sink.

Trina realized he was trying to protect Marvin—that he recognized and respected that Marvin was in a relationship with Trina and was trying not to say anything that might harm or break up that relationship—and Trina felt a surge of newfound respect for him. If she were in his position, if she had information that would destroy Marvin’s relationship and leave him available to be with her, she would be selfish, she would say it, reveal it. But Whizzer… Whizzer was trying not to say anything that might infringe upon Marvin’s choices. 

“The letter you wrote him— did he really call you every night to tell you he loved you?”

Whizzer was facing away from her, standing at the sink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said again, but his voice wavered slightly.

Trina pulled the letter out of her purse and unfolded it delicately, careful not to tear it. “‘Dear Marvin,’” she read. “‘My hopes are that you discover this letter—’”

“Stop, please,” Whizzer said. “I don’t want to hear what I said then.”

“I took it from him,” Trina said. “He keeps it well-hidden.”

“What do you want me to say?” Whizzer asked. “Why are you dredging all this up? What’s the point?”

“He’s kept it. You wrote him this letter ten years ago and he still has it.”

Whizzer shrugged.

“It’s almost falling apart,” Trina said. “He’s read it so many times it’s tearing at the creases.”

Whizzer was silent, still facing away, leaning on the edge of the sink.

“Do you still love him?”

Whizzer turned and left the room. Trina followed.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he said, voice strained. “Why are you doing this? What are you hoping to get out of this?”

“Do you still love him?”

“I don’t want to ruin everything you have with him.”

“If him keeping this letter all these years means there’s a chance he still loves you, and if you still love him… If there’s the slightest chance you could recover what you had, I want to let him go. I’ll step out of the way. I love him, yes, but I want him to be happy. Keeping him tied to me when he could have _this_ —” She held up the letter, “—would be cruel.”

“In ten years, he didn’t even try to contact me. We had plans. We were going to be together, build a life together, and then he disappeared. He went home and never came back. There’s no way he could ever feel the same way he did back then. If he did, why wouldn’t he have called, or written, or something— _anything_ —in ten years? He went home, called me once—and he sounded normal, like nothing was wrong—and that was the last I ever heard from him. He was just gone.” The bitterness, the hurt, the anger bled through in his words.

“I don’t think he disappeared on you of his own volition. I think his brother had something to do with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called his older brother the other day, asking. He said he found out about you—how, he didn’t say—and apparently he told him he would kill him if he ever contacted you again. He’s never told me, but I have a feeling his family was—or, still is—abusive, and if he thought his brother would do it—actually carry out that threat—he probably felt he had no choice.”

Whizzer sat down heavily and put his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking.

“So I’m asking if you still love him because I want you to have the happy ending you both deserve.”

“All this time, I’ve been so angry at him. But it’s not his fault.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Whizzer nodded.

“I have to go,” Trina said, checking her watch. “It’s getting late and I need to make dinner for Marvin when he gets home. When you have an answer for me, let me know.”

Whizzer made no move that he heard her. She backed away, recognizing his need for space right now, his need to be alone, and turned to leave. She left the letter on the bookshelf by the door and walked to the car. If Whizzer said yes, and wanted her to step aside, she would, but she was going to mourn the end of her time with Marvin. She loved him, but because she loved him, if she had to let him go, she would. 

“Wait!” 

Trina turned, her hand on the car door. Whizzer was standing at the door, holding the letter, cheeks wet, eyes red. 

“Yes. Yes, I still love him. I never stopped.”

Trina nodded, knowing what she had to do was the right thing. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” she said, and raised her right hand in a wave. 

Whizzer returned it, almost hopeful, and then backed through the door and vanished.

The next morning, as Trina was making breakfast, she could hear things being shuffled around in Marvin’s study. A few minutes later, Marvin showed up in the kitchen, disheveled, hair messy, eyes wide.

“Trina, did you move my things around?” It wasn’t an accusatory tone of voice, but there was a touch of panic lining the words.

“I know how particular you are with everything being in the right place. I wouldn’t touch your things.” She wasn’t exactly lying. Before, she wouldn’t. She’d only taken the letter yesterday afternoon and—oh. He was probably looking for it. She had wondered how often he read it, and it must have been very frequently because Marvin looked frantic.

“Did you lose something?” 

Marvin didn’t answer. He disappeared from the kitchen doorway. Trina followed him, curious. Marvin dug through his desk drawers, through everything, and didn’t turn up what he was searching for. She hadn’t expected him to miss it so quickly. It had been less than twenty-four hours since she had taken it.

“I can’t find it,” Marvin kept repeating to himself, as though repeating it would make it reappear.

“Let’s go for a drive, maybe calm down a bit.” Talking to him sooner rather than later would be best.

“No, no, I _need_ to find this. It’s really important.”

Marvin looked about to cry. If there was ever a message to let him go, that was it. He was absolutely distraught, and Trina realized the letter must be the most precious thing he owned. He dug furiously through the drawer Trina had found it in. 

“You’ll find it eventually.”

“Are you sure you didn’t touch anything? It’s okay if you did, I just— I just— I’m missing something and I _have_ to find it. I need it.” He dropped a stack of folders on the top of his desk and put his hands down on the wood in defeat. “I need it,” he said quietly, and took a shaky breath.

Trina reached out and pulled him away. He was limp in her grasp and followed her without any resistance.

“Let’s go on a drive. I need to talk to you anyway.”

Marvin walked wordlessly to the car, climbed in, and rested his head against the window. He looked broken. Trina suddenly felt terrible for leaving the letter at Whizzer’s. She hadn’t known losing it would affect him so much. She should have put it back. It pained her to know she had hurt him.

She drove in silence. They made a couple loops around town and then Trina started heading out Whizzer’s way. If she was going to go through with this, being as close to him as possible was probably best.

About three minutes from Whizzer’s, she pulled over to the side of the road and parked and turned off the car. Marvin was thoroughly confused, she could tell.

“I’ve been thinking,” Trina began finally, after watching several cars drive past, “about us. About our relationship.” She took a deep breath, steadied herself. “I don’t think it’s working out.”

“What?” Marvin was sitting up suddenly, body turned toward her, eyes wide, panicked.

“I don’t think our relationship is working out.”

“Is this— Are you— You want—”

“I think we should take a break from each other.” She threw in the possibility of it only being a break should Marvin not want to give it another go-around with Whizzer. “We don’t want to be unhappy.”

“You’re saying we can’t make each other happy?” Marvin said, voice rising, on the verge of panicking. “I am happy. Aren’t you?”

“I am happy, yes. I just meant that there are other people out there who might make us happier.”

Marvin leaned back in his seat. “You found someone else.” He nodded. “Okay, okay, that’s—”

“No, no, that’s not what I said.” Trina was trying to ease Marvin into the thought that he had a chance to be with Whizzer again, but he was misinterpreting everything. Trina wondered if Marvin had long ago given up being with Whizzer again and so wasn’t even considering it as a possibility.

“Then what are you saying, Trina, because I’m really confused.” 

“Look, Marvin, I love you. I really do. I just don’t think we’re the right fit for each other.”

“But we’re getting married! We have it all planned out!”

“Then it’s good we’re figuring this out before instead of after.”

Tears were welling up in Marvin’s eyes. “I just don’t understand. I— It’s my fault, isn’t it? What did I do?”

Trina reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s not anybody’s fault. You didn’t do anything. We just don’t work together the way we should. It’s unfair to both of us if we keep going.”

“I just— I—” 

Marvin slumped against the side of the car, blinking furiously. Trina felt like crying. She had hurt him so much today, and she hated that she had. She wanted to comfort him but knew there was only one person who could possibly reach him and start to heal him.

She restarted the car and kept driving. She pulled up to Whizzer’s house and gently pulled Marvin from the car.

“Where are we? I want to go home. Just let me go home, please.”

He protested but allowed Trina to walk him up to the front door. She opened it and ushered Marvin through. Whizzer was standing in the middle of the room, wringing his hands. He froze when he saw Marvin and searched his face desperately. Marvin stumbled when Trina gave him an encouraging nudge toward Whizzer.

“Stop wasting time,” she said. “You’ve already wasted ten years. You can’t afford to waste any more.”

Marvin looked like a deer in headlights. His eyes darted, distraught, between Trina and Whizzer, and it was only when Whizzer extended his hands toward him that Marvin rushed across the room and flung himself into Whizzer’s arms. Whizzer held him close, hands cradling his head to him. Marvin burst into tears and frantically tried to nuzzle as close as possible, pushing his face into Whizzer’s chest. He was nearly hyperventilating, and Whizzer petted his hair and shushed him. Whizzer was crying silently, a deep, empty chasm in his heart finally closing. 

“Baby, baby, it’s okay.” The pet name, unused for so long, fell from Whizzer’s lips easily. He rocked Marvin side to side. “Breathe, baby. It’s okay.”

Marvin was trying to speak, but his voice was thick and garbled and Whizzer just rocked him and told him it was all right. 

“Whizzer,” Marvin choked out. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I wanted— I wanted you so much. All the time.”

“Oh, baby. Me too.”

Marvin was trying to take deep breaths but failing, tears running down his cheeks, clutching Whizzer tightly to him as though he might never get another chance to hold him. And Whizzer knew he was holding Marvin back just as tightly, because, in a way, they were robbed of a goodbye—the long, warm hug they’d given each other the day Marvin left had been their final moment together, not that either knew it at the time. 

“I shouldn’t have gone home,” Marvin said, still struggling to speak through his tears. “I never should have left. My brother, he—” 

“I know.”

Marvin cried into Whizzer’s shirt for a couple more minutes, Whizzer whispering reassuring words to him, before Whizzer gently led him to the couch. They sat together, Marvin curled up in Whizzer’s lap like a baby, cradled in his arms. They were so sweet, so delicate with each other, and they were murmuring softly, trying to catch up on ten years’ worth of things they’d missed. 

Trina watched from the doorway. She had made the right decision—giving them the opportunity to rekindle what had been taken away from them. Whizzer leaned down and pressed a kiss to Marvin’s cheek. Marvin turned his face toward Whizzer, almost catching his lips, and when Whizzer leaned down again to brush their lips together, Trina turned away and retreated to the kitchen. She had done her part. She was no longer a part of their lives. She gathered up her purse and slipped out the back door. She would see them later, after they’d had a chance to talk and work things out between them, but right now, they needed to be alone together, so she left.

After some time, Whizzer and Marvin got up off the couch and walked outside. Whizzer’s backyard was rather large, and fenced, and they walked in circles, talking, their hands clasped together, trying to walk as closely together as possible. Marvin was clutching Whizzer’s arm.

“I lost your letter,” Marvin said quietly, and tears welled in his eyes. “I was so careful to keep it safe but I lost it.”

Whizzer squeezed his hand. “It’s not lost. I have it.”

Marvin stared at him. “How?”

“Trina’s sneakier than you give her credit for. She found it and brought it to me.”

Marvin sighed and a relieved laugh bubbled out of him. “I was terrified when I thought I’d lost it. It’s not like I couldn’t recite it from memory—I read it so much I didn’t really need to read it anymore—but it was more the fact that I had some part of you still with me.”

“I didn’t have anything of you,” Whizzer said softly. “I had nothing. After a while, I was afraid I would even be able to recognize your face anymore. I forgot what it looked like. In my memories, I forgot what you looked like. I forgot your voice.” Silent tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’d see you in my dreams, all the time, but I could never remember when I woke up.”

Marvin leaned his head on Whizzer’s shoulder as they walked. 

“I dreamed about you, too,” he said. “The exact dreams I don’t really remember. I remember the feelings they gave me more than anything. I was so happy in my dreams because you were there, and then when I’d wake up, I’d feel so… sad.”

Whizzer squeezed Marvin’s hand. “I didn’t want to be, but I was so angry for so long,” he said, “because I had everything planned out, and it all included you, always, and I had no idea why you disappeared. I thought for a long time that I’d done something or that you didn’t want to be with me anymore and just didn’t know how to tell me, and it was so hard to think that maybe I didn’t mean as much to you as you meant to me.”

Marvin let out a shaky breath and stopped walking, tugging on Whizzer’s hand just enough to pull him to face him.

“I— Whizzer, this might be too weird to bring up, but there’s something I never got to ask you back in college.” Whizzer inclined his head. “When we were still planning on going on our trip, before everything happened and I had to go home, I was planning on asking… asking you to marry me.” Whizzer let out a choked noise and put his hand over his mouth. “I knew it wasn’t legal or anything, and we wouldn’t have actually be able to get married, but I was going to ask anyway. You know, for what it meant, not because we actually could.”

“Marvin… I…” 

“I know it’s probably awkward to bring it up now, but I never did get around to asking, and I kind of… wanted you to know that that was on my mind back then.”

So much feeling surged up inside Whizzer, and tears were suddenly flooding down his cheeks. Marvin had wanted to _marry him_ back then, even if they couldn’t really. He was absolutely torn to pieces. 

“I would have said yes,” he said, not even trying to keep the raw emotion in his voice in check. So much time had been lost. They could have been going on twelve years now.

Marvin was crying too, then. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

Whizzer took Marvin’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault. Don’t you ever say that. It’s not your fault. You had no choice.”

“If I hadn’t gone home—”

“You had no idea what was going to happen. Neither of us did. That’s over now. It happened, and we both got hurt, but we’re here now. We made it back around. I’d rather have you in my life ten years too late than not at all. Okay, baby? And we’re not completely starting over. We’ve changed, of course. We’ve gotten more life under our belts now, but we’re picking up where we left off. Think of it that way. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Marvin took his hands and they stood across from each other. They both leaned forward and met in a gentle, dewy kiss, and it all came rushing back to Marvin—just how perfectly they fit together, how easy it was to be with him.

“Do you, uh…” Whizzer began after pulling away. “You’re living with Trina, and I know that’s going to be awkward—”

“I need to find a new place, I know. I know.” Marvin sighed. He hated the stress of moving.

“You could move in here. With me,” Whizzer said. “You could have your own space, your own bedroom. And I have a spare room on the side that I’m not using for anything that you could have. I know that’s probably moving too quick, I mean, we’ve just gotten back together. I mean… I think we have?”

“I hope we have,” Marvin said quietly, and squeezed Whizzer’s hand.

“But, there’s room, and if we’re being honest, I really hate living here alone.”

Marvin smiled and fitted his arms around Whizzer’s waist. “I’m going to stay in the apartment with Trina for a bit, you know? Let things settle some. But… well… after that, if you’ll still have me here, I’d like that a lot.”

Whizzer pressed his face into Marvin’s hair. God, he’d missed that smell. He laid a couple kisses there, on the top of his head.

“You’re always welcome here.”

“And— Whizzer?”

Whizzer almost laughed. Even after all these years, he could still recognize when Marvin was unsure or feeling shy just by the tone of his voice. “Yeah?”

“You said I could have my own bedroom?”

“Yeah, of course. You can take your pick of the empty rooms.”

“Eventually, can I… can we have just _one_ bedroom?”

Whizzer laughed and rocked Marvin back and forth. “Oh, baby. I hope so.”

Whizzer kissed Marvin’s head and rocked him and it was so wonderful to have Marvin back in his arms again. They had a lot to discuss, a lot to talk through, a lot to work on, but they were together, and everything was so much easier when they were together.


	16. Chapter 16

Marvin and Whizzer moved in together two months after getting back together, and they had been together for a total of six months—taking it slow—when Marvin shyly asked if he could sleep in Whizzer’s room that night. That evening, after Whizzer had enlisted Marvin’s help cooking dinner, and after lazily making out on the loveseat for twenty minutes, Whizzer slipped his hand into Marvin’s and tugged him to the bedroom, only partially tripping over Marvin’s shoes, which he had left in the middle of the rug. Whizzer laughed delightedly as they went. It was so comforting to have Marvin and his clutter around the house.

Whizzer closed the door and dimmed the lights the way they liked. He walked over to the bed, where Marvin was sitting on the edge, and sat down next to him. Marvin reached for his hand.

“I haven’t, since. Not since you.”

“No one?”

“I couldn’t do it with a woman. That was all I could have, so I chose not to. And Trina and I were waiting. I’m afraid I don’t know how to have sex anymore.”

Marvin let out a long sigh. 

Whizzer pressed his lips to the side of Marvin’s head. “We don’t have to do it tonight,” Whizzer said. “If you’re still unsure and feeling uncomfortable with it, we’ll wait and you can just sleep here. I’ve waited for you for ten years. I can wait a little longer.”

“Can I just lie with you for a bit? See where it goes?”

“Of course, baby.”

Whizzer crawled into the middle of the bed and Marvin followed, and Marvin ended up lying on top of Whizzer, knees on the bed on either side of his hips, head on his chest. Whizzer’s arms were resting lightly on his lower back, warm and comforting.

“Marvin? Baby?”

Marvin lifted his head to look at him. “Yeah?”

“You’re not concerned for your safety, are you?”

Marvin furrowed his eyebrows. 

“Your brother,” Whizzer clarified.

Marvin shook his head. “Oh… I don’t think so. Not really. I’m older now and I know what to do if he threatens me. He never could get me when I wasn’t living at home anyway, so I think I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Just checking.”

“I’m okay. And I— I always feel safe with you.”

Whizzer clutched him tighter and kissed his cheek. When Marvin turned his head, their lips brushed together. Marvin kissed him deeply and everything started to fall back into place. When Marvin began grinding his hips against Whizzer’s, Whizzer almost laughed.

“ _Ah, Marvin_. Keep doing that.”

“I haven’t done this in ten years,” Marvin said, voice soft and breathy. “It’ll probably be over really quick.”

“That’s okay, baby. Don’t worry about lasting. Just enjoy yourself.”

Marvin rocked harder, and it felt like they were college students again, dry humping frantically in the back seat of Marvin’s car in the darkened student parking deck because they weren’t patient enough to wait until they got back to Whizzer’s room. 

“ _Ah, ah, Marvin_ , pause please.” Whizzer gripped his hips to hold him still and took several deep breaths. “You were worried about not lasting long, but you’re doing better than me right now, baby. I need a couple minutes or I’m gonna come before we even really get anywhere.”

Marvin laughed suddenly, a bright, happy, relieved laugh, and kissed Whizzer’s cheek. He rolled off him and they lay next to each other for a while. 

“I like your room,” Marvin said, eyes roaming over the art on the walls, the small TV across from the bed, the lavender anthurium on a table in the corner.

“It needs a facelift.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It doesn’t have your stuff in it.”

Marvin rolled onto his side and lifted Whizzer’s arm up and draped it around his shoulders. He leaned up to kiss his jaw. Whizzer turned to meet him. “Well, you’ve already made a good start.”

“How?”

“You have me in here now.”

Whizzer sat up suddenly and pulled Marvin into his lap. He hugged him so tightly Marvin could hardly breathe. Whizzer sighed into Marvin’s shoulder. “It’s been ten years, Marvin. A whole decade. I can barely believe you’re here.”

Marvin ran his hands through Whizzer’s hair. “I’m here. To stay, if you’ll let me.”

“I’ll let you. I want you to.” Whizzer started pressing wet kisses up his neck. “I want you.”

“Then have me.”

They got each other warmed up, refamiliarizing themselves with each other’s bodies, relearning how to move together, remembering how to make each other groan and gasp, until they were both naked and flushed and hard and _ready_.

When Marvin reached for the condom, Whizzer’s hand shot out to grasp his wrist.

“Can we— Do we have to use it? We both got tested, we’re both clean, and I— We never did it without one before, even when we could. I think I want… you. All of you. I want to feel all of you. Is that okay? Can we do that?”

Marvin lobbed the condom back into the drawer and lunged forward and kissed him. “ _Yes_. I want that too.”

He fumbled with the lube, out of practice, not having used any for so long, and when he was finally ready, he pulled Whizzer’s legs apart and shuffled closer. He held his breath and moved against him, slowly pushing in until he could go no further. He stayed still, not that he could possibly do much else, because there was a loud rushing in his ears and he was lightheaded and dizzy. He was consumed by pleasure, by feeling Whizzer around him, knowing their connection was complete, that they were sharing one experience, fully together, unguarded, open, just as it should have always been. _Finally_. Marvin buried his fingers in Whizzer’s hair and nuzzled at his neck and pressed their cheeks together. He was completely overwhelmed.

“Whizzer, Whizzer…”

“Yeah, baby?” Whizzer said, almost gasping. There was a waver in his voice Marvin had never heard before.

“I might— I think I want to cry.”

“Then cry, baby. I’m—” Whizzer was suddenly taking short, sharp breaths. “I’m— I’m crying—” Whizzer put his hands up to his face. Tears were flooding out of the corners of his eyes. 

Marvin didn’t try to stop himself from crying, from feeling what he was feeling, from letting go of the last tethers of control, and it was a feeling so strong that he couldn’t move right away—so he tucked his head in the crook of Whizzer’s neck and cried. Whizzer’s hands were on his back, hugging him tightly, and their tears were mingling and flowing together and it was messy and emotional, but wonderful—to hold each other again, to be a part of each other again—so, so wonderful. When Marvin finally started moving, they were both snotty and had puffy red eyes and noses and lips, but to each other, they were each the most beautiful person they’d ever seen. They moved together—sweet sounds escaping, raw emotion thrumming between them—and it was perfect.

Afterwards, they lay together for a long time, Marvin’s head on Whizzer’s chest and his hand on his stomach, sweaty and sticky and tearstained. 

“Stay with me. Don’t leave me again,” Whizzer said, voice thick and strained. He’d cried so much in such a short period of time that he didn’t think he had enough tears left to cry again. 

Marvin ran his hand up Whizzer’s chest and curled his fingers around the back of his head.

“You wrote in that letter to me that you and I have never been usual. And I don’t want to be usual. I have no use for usual if you’re not with me. Usual is the norm, but I don’t want that. I think we’re well past the point of following convention, so I want to know—if I ask you to marry me, would you say yes?”

Whizzer’s eyes were shining. “Ask me and find out.”

Marvin grabbed Whizzer’s hand and pulled him up and out of bed. They were naked and dirty and desperately needing a shower, but Marvin dropped to one knee and said, “Even though it’s not legal and means nothing to anyone but ourselves—Whizzer Brown, will you marry me?”

Whizzer yanked him up and pulled him flush against him.

“You ass, of course I’ll marry you.”

Marvin laughed into Whizzer’s shoulder and they held each other and swayed back and forth. 

“Hurry up and shower with me because I want to go to bed and cuddle you to death, my _fiancé_ ,” Whizzer said after a minute, grinning. He pressed a kiss to Marvin’s cheek, resisted the urge to stick his tongue in his ear just to watch him yelp, and wriggled out of his grasp. “Come on.” He slapped Marvin’s ass lightly to get him moving.

“Whizzer,” Marvin said, slowing to a stop halfway across the room. “I love you, you know that?”

Whizzer came up behind him and wrapped him up in a hug. “And I love you too. Always have.” He started shuffling Marvin forward again. “Now come _on_. Shower. You are the slowest goddamn person I’ve ever met in my life.”

Marvin laughed and let Whizzer push him toward the bathroom. 

_You make me feel alive. The world feels right with you. I feel like myself with you._ Marvin fell asleep that night with Whizzer’s heart beating in his ear and his hand in his hair, and he’d never felt the truth of those words quite so strongly.


End file.
